Blood Chain
by LoweFantasy
Summary: In a vicious cycle of revenge and survival among a ring of blood fed nightmares, two teenage girls come face to face with something not at all productive to staying alive. Their hunters have bigger fish to fry than them, namely each other, but their use as bloodbanks might be in order. Fem Joey, Fem Yugi, and vampires. A Halloween special for my wonderful readers.
1. Prologue

**I've actually never had the opportunity to read a well written vampire story. At least, not one that I can remember off the top of my head, and that includes Twilight. Thus, I thought 'what the heck' and decided to have a gander at writing my own. Since this is a Halloween special I'll try to have it finished by Halloween, which means this story is out of the usual once a week updates. ^.^ You're gonna get more.**

 **So enjoy. Laugh, mock, applaud, hate, or get addicted to at your pleasure.**

Blood Chain

By LoweFantasy

Prologue

Seto Kaiba watched the neon flicker through the Benz's heavily tinted windows. After three blinks, he heaved a heavy sigh and peeled off his suit coat and tie. Best not to look too obviously high class. Once he'd rolled up his sleeves to make his button up shirt look more casual, he pulled a black fedora from underneath the seat and put it on his head once he'd mussed up his hair a bit.

Not a master of disguise, but it would serve his purposes. It wasn't like he was going to be here long anyways.

"Try not to look so obvious when you come back," he told his driver and body guard, Roland.

"Same time as usual?" asked Roland.

Seto hesitated. "I'll call."

The man glanced back and frowned. "Bad day, sir?"

"Would I be here otherwise?" Seto snapped open the door and kicked it out. With a nod and a last minute check to make sure his phone was in his pocket, he stepped into the shadows next to the low-key night club. As he walked away from the Benz he used most days for travel, Roland reversed into the dark side-street, so no one would be the wiser when they saw Seto stepping out into the lights.

The bouncer recognized him off the bat. "Long day, B-man?"

"Always." Seto flashed the money and accepted the plastic wristband.

"You're gonna like tonight's special," said the bouncer. "They just finished building the second floor, so they've brought in some dancers to celebrate."

Seto said nothing. He didn't care either way. If he had wanted pole dancers and strip teasers, he would have gone somewhere else.

No, there was reason he came to such a low-brow joint, and it wasn't for the cheapness or the drugs.

As he stepped through and into the haze of fog and flashing lights, he breathed in deep of the perfume of moving bodies and hair spray. The floor writhed with dancing patrons, though the smoke made it difficult to decipher any faces.

Feeling the expected calm wash over him, Seto found his favorite spot in a lounge chair next to the bar that had old springs, giving it the ability to nigh swallow whoever sat in it. He ordered a sweet bourbon and sipped at it as he stared out into the fog, lights, and movement.

No one glanced his way. Not one.

And after a week of playing CEO to one of the most successful and powerful companies in the world, having the opportunity to not catch attention was priceless. The loud music pounded out the whirling numbers and figures of his busy brain, and the darkness and fog gave him the impression of being alone somewhere deep under water.

He sighed in relief and took another sip of his drink. It burned away the knots in his muscles. He took one more sip and closed his eyes to better feel his body relaxing. Since this was the only time he drank, a little alcohol went a long ways, just as he meant it to be.

Sometime later, he opened his eyes to measure how much bourbon he had left and happened to see two figures stumble out of the fog. Or rather, the girl did on her impossibly high heels, tittering and giggling as her wrist was pulled along by a man. Seto's eyes narrowed as his training read their lines like a business report; after all, he wasn't the youngest billionaire in history for nothing.

The girl was drunk. The young man was not. But what set Seto's hair on end was the slightly hunched, predatory way he held his shoulders. There was a fluidity to his steps that spoke of physical strength, or at least a higher than normal awareness of where he held his weight.

The couple passed into the shadows on the other side of the lounge, far from the view of the bartender, to a side door.

Seto put down his bourbon and stood. He wondered for but a second if he should let someone know what he was doing before stuffing his hands in his pockets and making his way through the tables and chairs. The door they had vanished behind had a scratched and worn 'Employees Only' taped to the front. He hesitated before twisting the doorknob. Readying his weight, he threw it open.

To find a set of poorly lit stairs.

He inwardly groaned. This place just screamed rape. Why didn't they have anyone guarding this? And in a hovel of unchecked human wanton no less.

Careful to roll his feet from heel to toe, he quietly edged down the steps. As his shoes hit the bottom, a small, feminine yip sent him whirling round the corner.

His chest went hard and cold.

In the harsh, white light of the lone, naked lightbulb, the man, dressed all in black and with startling wild hair, held the young girl to the corner where the wall met the floor with one knee, and had his face buried in her neck. She had arched her head back, but not in ecstasy, but in a silent, open mouthed scream.

Seto was in motion before he had even processed what he saw. Years of martial arts training had the crazy haired man loose from the girl and face first in the cement floor with his arms locked behind his back.

"Go," said Seto to the girl. "I'll hold him."

The girl just stared at him with wide, glassy eyes. It was then Seto noticed that she had blood trailing down her throat and staining the collar of her deep cut, white shirt.

Ugh. So this was one of those kinky sickos. "Go!"

She flinched, and with surprising dexterity for someone who was obviously drunk, she leapt to her mile high shoes and clomped out of sight.

As Seto reached to his back pocket for his cell phone, the boy beneath him jerked. He tightened his hold.

And in a whirl of naked lightbulb and cinderblock walls, Seto found himself on his back, winded and bemused.

The young man in black was atop him, the backlight of the lightbulb bringing out the red tips of his hair.

And his eyes were glowing red, pupils dilated and shivering.

Seto kicked his legs against the ground, meaning to unset the smaller man, but for some reason it was like the guy had turned to lead. Sharp, cat like-nails dug into his wrists and a shout of surprised pain escaped him.

"Get off me, freak!" He clenched his fists, tugging them. But the nails just dug deeper.

The man said nothing. But the burning red eyes drew closer.

It wasn't until the moment the young CEO felt the needles on his throat that it occurred to him that this attacker was anything more than what he had first thought him to be. It didn't even occur to Seto that the owner of the fangs wasn't even human until he woke up several hours later with his head spinning and his neck burning like fire.


	2. Strawberry Milkshake

**Once saw this anime called "Shiki" something or other. When my friend told me it was about vampires, I more or less did a raspberry in her face and flounced off. Lucky for me she tracked me down and made me watched the first episode or two. That was some brilliant horror, right there. Sent all my writer nerd nerves haywire. Freaking terrifying.**

 **I hope to incorporate some of that same horror into this story. But I don't got my hopes up too high since I already revealed the monster. Number one rule of horror: revealing the monster means game over.**

Chapter 1

"Boobs boobs boobs boobs,"

Yugi sighed and rolled her eyes at the tall blond currently hugging her breasts and bouncing them as she watched the zombies on the screen. As she sang on to her new bouncy breasts, Yugi shot down the horde to clear the way to the fire embossed door.

"You're cute," Yugi said, looking through the inventory on the screen for the red key.

"Correction. I is sexy! Two months of scrounging plastic bottles and the old man's beer was totally worth it. It's like I got a freaking boob job!"

Yugi smiled, though had become preoccupied with the screen as the door opened to an uncomfortably calm room. The light from the moon brought an old portrait over the mantle into stark relief, and the dark eyes and high cheek bones unnerved her.

Joey must have sensed the oncoming horror, for she begun to bounce her boobs faster.

"Protect me, my blessed jiggly friends," she murmured. "Evil is at hand."

"Seriously, I won't be offended if you want to play a different game," said Yugi.

"Nah, I ain't—HOLY CRAP WHAT WAS THAT!"

"It's just a crow. Man, there isn't even any creepy music or anything."

Yugi maneuvered her character about the room, examining the coffee table between the two settees and the bookshelf. As the camera switched view, another painting came into view, situated between two mirrors.

"Again with the mirrors," muttered Joey. "Reminds me of that 'Hollows' game where you—"

An eyeless, howling face smacked against one of the mirrors. Boob bouncing ceased as Joey screamed bloody murder and Yugi started a deluge of bullets into the glass.

After a good full minute of screams, the door slammed open and Yugi's black haired mother appeared.

"What in the—Josephine Wheeler!"

" _It's gonna kill meeeee!"_

"I thought I told you no more scary video games? Yugi, do you have it out for your friend— _pause your game_!"

Yugi jabbed start mid lead spray. "Yeah Mom?"

The mama beast narrowed her eyes and slapped a hand to her waist and a finger towards the console. "Off. Now."

"Alright! Alright! Sorry, I didn't think she'd…sorry Mom."

With a few more child frying glares and some coerced promises from the teen girls that they'd keep the screaming to a 'not at all,' she finally left, her shoes clicking down the stairs as she went.

Yugi gave Joey a look.

Joey threw her hands in the air. "I'm sorry! I thought I had it this time!"

Yugi sighed and hung her hands off her crossed legs. "It's my fault. I thought you were caught up enough in your new bra to, you know…whatever."

"I thought I was too." Joey gave her breasts a tentative prod. "Lordie, they're like perfect globes of jello goodness."

"Try not to fawn over your breasts while you're on your date with Duke, yeah?"

"Pfft. I won't have room to. That guy's eyes will be taking it all up."

Yugi wrinkled her nose, but grinned nonetheless. "Didn't think you'd be the type to give a guy invitation to be a perv."

"Since I have no interest in the bloke," she puffed out her chest. It conceded to one humble jiggly.

"And you're still going with him why…?"

"Cuz I ain't get no romanc'n and I want something to puff myself up with the next time Tristan starts singing his "Like a Man" song to Madonna's Virgin crap. Besides, should prove interesting. Free food's always good."

"Hazah to free food." Yugi pulled over her case of video games and fingered through titles. She passed over the horrors with only a twinge of regret, and finally settled on an old multi-player RPG she hadn't touched in weeks. She showed it to Joey for her opinion, but got a shaggy shake of the blonde's head.

"My legs are getting all stuffy. Why don't we go get a milkshake or something?"

Yugi glanced at the clock. "It's almost ten."

"Micky D's is open twenty-four seven and I still got five dollars left over from the boobie fund. Come on, your mom won't mind."

Yugi didn't know if that was necessarily a good thing, but since McDonalds was only three blocks away, it wasn't like she had much to worry about. Still…

She pushed her videogames back beneath her little TV.

"You're buying."

They left Yugi's mom a shout on where they were going and headed off into the night. Slow traffic buzzed by, throwing the shadows of dead lamp posts and their legs onto the brick buildings they passed. A pizza place across the street that had been there since the dawn of time watched them with one lone light glowing from its windows. A used book store didn't look at all, too cramped between two apartment buildings for emergency lights.

Once the two had obtained their milkshakes, Joey chocolate and Yugi strawberry, they headed back through the orange lit night. Yugi looked up at the stars as she waited for the next car to pass. Strawberry coated the roof of her mouth. The air was warm, just right for ice cream.

It was one of those summer nights. The kind she knew she'd drift back to when she needed to remember what peace felt like.

"What's that?"

Joey's forced calm sent a cold shiver up Yugi's spine. She dropped her head, following Joey's finger to a dark, short alley they were passing, mostly filled with a dumpster.

Something, or someone, hunched in the darkness. The light from the nearest working streetlamp was enough to see the edges of a long black trench coat and the shape of wild hair. Even as Yugi watched, the tips of their hair seemed to tremble.

"Probably someone who wants to be left alone," said Yugi quietly, pushing at her frozen friend. "Honestly, no more horror games for you."

At the sound of her voice, the person in the alley looked up, and Yugi found herself staring into a pair of impossibly red, glowing eyes.

For the space of a breath, Yugi felt her muscles seize up under that gaze, suspended in blank surprise and the calm before the flight.

Joey was the first to react. She let out one of her famous piercing shrieks and split, long legs serving her well.

Yugi, however, found herself unable to move, stunned with an overwhelming pressure of something imminent, something dangerous, tinged with an unproductive amount of disbelief. This had to be a joke, after all. No one had glowing red eyes. How hokey could you get?

Slowly, the figure stood, unblinking.

Strawberry milkshake splattered over her feet. Ice cream sunk around the plastic strap of her flip-flops, in between her toes.

"Aren't you going to run after your friend?"

If the cold of her lost treat had been enough to unstick her, the low, smooth voice had been enough to refreeze her.

"I'm g-g-getting to that," she heard herself squeak.

The red eyes finally blinked.

Then the night air rumbled with a break of unmistakable laughter. The rolling peels sent pleasant prickles over her shoulders. The idea that this was a joke became a little stronger, blurring the terror.

"I-Is this some kind of joke?" she asked, trying not to sound offensive. "I mean, you have to be a pro if it is. It's got to cost some money to make your eyes glow like that. Do you just wait here for anyone to look in?"

The laughter hitched and lowered to a closed mouth chuckle. Her eyes had adjusted a bit more by now, and she thought she could make out a smooth face and proud shoulders. Now that she was calming down, she noticed he wasn't all that tall for a boy. Definitely taller than her (everything was taller than her), but nothing that should have intimidated Joey, street fighter extraordinaire.

"Something like that," he said, and she found she liked listening to his voice. "Best you scurry off. Got to prepare for my next scare, eh?"

But Yugi found herself cocking her head to the side as she tried to covertly shake the milkshake from her toes.

"Is this, like, a hobby of yours?" she asked. "How did you get your eyes to glow?"

"Magician's secret. You should head along."

She nodded, set down her sticky foot, and smiled. "I'll see you around, then."

It wasn't till she stepped into the bright light of her bathroom to clean off her feet to the sound's of Joey's raving that she noticed that her hands were still shaking.


	3. Lost to the Beast

**Always embarassing to read over your recently published chapter and seeing all your misspellings and typos you missed the first read through. Forgive me, I wrote these in a plurge of 4 hours, and since everything I posto n is on a first draftbasis, editing is kept to a minimum. Otherwise I'd be on the story forever. When I edit and revise, I get real.**

Chapter 2

Atem hit the ground without knowing why. The scent of vampire vanished beneath the acrid, sickly sweet musk of his own blood. The thirst hit him before the pain.

Cursing, he rolled into a nearby stairwell. A few years worth of garbage and fallen leaves cushioned his fall and dimed the reek of his wound. Careful not to bite his lip, he twisted around to his hip, where a patch of too dark spread through the leg of his black denim pants. The hole went clean through, starting from the outside to the inside of his leg, even grazing the top of his other thigh as he had been mid-stride between buildings.

 _Someone's shooting at me?_ The idea wasn't totally ludicrous, but it did add a plethora of other problems, namely the rising blood thirst which was coiling his muscles and burning his throat. He grunted with the effort it took to stay conscious. Instinct clawed at his self-awareness.

"Damn it." If only a bullet could kill him.

His heightened hearing picked up footsteps at the end of the ally. With the silence of the night creature he was, he dug beneath the leaves and garbage. Mold and rot pulled his lips back from his teeth. Disgusting.

The footsteps hesitated near the top of the staircase. Atem held his breath, both for silence as well as to prevent the smell of human from joining the pain in feeding his bloodlust.

Eventually they moved on, and Atem pulled himself out of the pit. His vision fuzzed and his mouth had gone dry. Painfully dry. At least he could stand on one leg.

Figuring he should avoid the roofs for a little while, Atem limped heavily away, clinging to brick walls and fences when his vision was in, crouching to all fours like an animal when he was not.

Smells scrambled his brain. The piercing fumes of cars. The piss of the vogue vampire he had been stalking. The various savory strands of human, blending together like the aroma of a buffet. The soft, water-like sky high was the clear background above it all.

He fought desperately for his senses. Strands of thought bled through his fingertips.

 _I have to hunker down, find a basement, somewhere out of sight that hasn't seen humans in while. Find a dog or a cat or raccoon, anything._

A burst of consciousness told him of somewhere far from the place he had started. The next burst was clearer, longer, displaying a familiar street and happy, yellow 'M' sign a block down.

Clinging to the old dumpster for both stability and a means of focus, he gathered his bearings, panting through the elongated fangs that had filled his mouth. His arms trembled from the effort.

 _Why'd the monster bring me here?_ He glanced back at the McDonalds and to the empty pizza joint across the street. It was a lower end neighborhood, like many that he haunted. In places of misery, where crime and violence was rampant, it was easy for one vampire to go unnoticed. A few of the streetlamps were dead, and almost just as many were flickering, though it didn't matter much as the gray light of oncoming dawn already drowned them out.

A memory of a slight girl with strawberry milkshake on her feet flashed across his mind's eye. With it came the memory of her scent: buttery sweet and hinted with lavender.

Metal squealed beneath his claws as his instincts heaved against his conscious thought; the monster straining at its feeble bonds. Each yank spiked horror through his gut.

 _Why her?_ Why the funny, cute little girl? Why not the aimless drug addicted hobo that was near the end of his life anyways? Why not any of the other ghostlike humans that foolishly chose to stay out in the night?

The metal popped as his fingers punctured holes in the sides.

"No," he growled towards his chest. His subconscious had some say in where his blood starved instincts took his body, after all. "Find something else." _Dog. Raccoon. Cat._ He chanted at himself.

But in the ripe memory of the girl's scent, his stomach turned at the thought of sinking his fangs into the messy hide of an animal. He could almost feel the fur tickling the back of his throat, gagging him.

Just as he thought his mind would give out, his legs did, buckling him to the cool ground.

For a space of time, he hung by his fingertips, face first against the grimy side of the dumpster, pain pushing his maddening cravings to the back for a blessed moment. He even gasped in relief, tasting metal and rotten stink from years of trash.

 _Maybe if I put something sharp in the wound…the pain will keep it at bay until—_

"Red-eye guy?"

Dread flashed his mind into an icy blank.

Strawberry milkshake girl.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay? What hap—is that blood?"

He opened his mouth to bark her away, to scream if he had to, but instead got a mouthful of her warm, butter-sugar smell, and the hints of lavender made the locked muscles of his hand go involuntarily lax. He felt himself slide down, felt the scream of his legs even as the monster within him rose up with renewed vigor.

In the last of his dying vision, he saw her long mane of colorful hair lit by the first golden strands of dawn. Though the shadow of the alley kept the light from touching her directly, it backlighted her, giving her a sort of angelic glow. Her eyes were large like a doe's, and framed by black lashes.

She really was so tiny.

"Mr. Red-eyes?"

With an effort that stole his breath, he dug the mental nails of his will into the hide of his instincts and held it back by the skin of his teeth. The result was pain, mind crushing pain. His arms gave out, leaving him slumped and cheek smeared against the side of the dumpster.

She was running towards him, hands outstretched.

"Run," he gasped. "Get away."

She was so tiny. He was sure to kill her if he allowed his injured, blood thirsty body to have its way with her.

Then her warm, tiny hands touched his arm.

He wrenched back, but it was like his body tore free of his consciousness. He still held on to his awareness by threads, but he sat up and his arms reached out for her of their own accord, scooping her in as easily as chaff in the wind. A hand went over her mouth as he dragged her behind the dumpster, hidden from view of the street. His vision slipped away, but he shuddered with the euphoria of his fangs breaking through her thin skin and filling his mouth with ambrosia.

It had been so long since he had tasted human blood. Usually he kept the blood thirst at bay with animals until his instincts knocked him out and took his body for a joyride. But being aware during the rapture, feeling the hot, sweet nectar filling every corner of his mouth and running down his throat…

Then he came too. The palm over her mouth was wet. Her slim, soft body had been dragged down beneath his, and his other hand had come up to hold her neck more securely to his mouth.

He jerked back, black, icky horror upturning his insides—

To see half-lidded, violet eyes blink slowly back at him.

"Oh…" she breathed.

 _She lived…_

Heart racing, he tore off his shirt and pressed it to the side of her neck. "Stay with me, I-I'm going to call an ambulance."

She just looked at him, wan and pale. Her short school skirt had ridden up her thighs and he hurriedly pulled them down.

"I am so sorry, I didn't mean…" he choked. What kind of stupidity was he saying? He needed to find a phone—damn it, out of all the times to not own one!

"Bag," she whispered.

Of course. All the kids had cell phones now a day. Lifting her hand to the shirt on her neck, he jumped off her and towards the little blue bag at the end of the alley—

And nearly overshot it.

Sunlight blinded him momentarily, and he staggered back—way back—and into the alley, having crossed an extra ten feet with the bound he had only meant for three.

 _What in the…_

His next surprise came as he opened the bookbag and instead tore it in half. Pencils and textbooks scattered across the alley floor.

For a precious second, he stared at it all, stunned. Even as he shook himself and snatched up the pink phone, he noted he felt more refreshed and invigorated than he had in months, maybe even years. He actually had to focus on not crushing the little phone, though the moment he touched the screen to unlock it the screen cracked, becoming unreadable.

He glanced down at his front and wondered if the black would disguise the fact that he was covered in blood if he went to the McDonalds for a phone.

A presence from above—he whipped around—but a tall, dark haired man blocked the entrance to the alleyway, a mean, sleek black rifle leveled at the vampire's gaze.

Something like recognition tickled the back of his mind before he dropped to the ground, the sharp, muffled pang of the bullet hitting the cinder block wall behind him. Bits of debris peppered his back.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he cried.

In answer the man just smirked, revealing long, glistening canines.

Only then did Atem recognize the man's pungent, inhuman scent. Yet it wasn't the same as the vampire he had been stalking.

He ducked to the side just as another bullet ripped through the air. His new improved super speed and strength served him well as he dove into the man and flung him like a doll into the brick siding. Bones cracked. The gun flew away. But to his credit, the other vampire only grunted.

Atem reached for the opposing brick wall, digging his fingertips into the mortar for a climb, and hesitated.

Then he leapt back to the now unconscious girl and scooped her up into his arms.

"Oy! Drop her!"

A new figure had appeared at the mouth of the alley, but Atem didn't have time to look. He shoved out the monster from his back, spread the resulting wings of membrane and bones to either end of the alley, and gave an almighty pump. The ground all but fled from him. Painfully bright morning sunlight blinded him, but he kept climbing, up and up into the sky.

All the while, Atem gently kept the shirt bundled up against the side of the girl's neck.


	4. A Lack of Insanity

**Man, I'm hungry. I would kill for a plate of pasta that wasn't spaghetti or cheap store bought Alfredo.**

Chapter 3

As a rule, Josephine didn't take to winged demons with spiky hair kidnapping her best friend near their meet up point for walking to school. Nor did she handle the terror inflicted by the supernatural well. Sure, throw her in front of a bunch of mean guys who had missed their daily dose of knuckle sandwich and she'd do great. Guns? No prob. Knives? Great for cutting tomatoes and faces. Supernatural freaks from hell or 'Silent Hill'? Good night.

Thus, she turned on the groaning pile of injured manflesh that the freaky winged guy had slammed against a wall with nothing less than dragonic fury, and perhaps a touch of insanity. Fully aware of the fact that his arm was bending in more places than one, she balled her fist into his black shirt and drug him upright.

"Where'd he go?" she spat.

"Back off," came the growled reply.

"Like hell. Super Goth just flew off with my best friend, so spill it!"

"Back. Off."

"No one carries gunfire like that into the city without knowing what their hunting, so don't think I'll believe you just so happened to—"

A hand clasped hard around her throat. A big hand.

Then she saw a strange mixture of red and blue peering up at her. The light they emitted painted purple onto the curtains made by his thick, dark bangs.

"Too late," he hissed, even as his mouth parted to reveal long, gleaming teeth.

Fury turned to sheer terror. She felt wetness growing in her crotch.

Just as he pulled her neck down to set his teeth on it, she passed out.

Next thing she knew, she was staring up at fabric. The fancy wavy kind you usually see on high end couches or comforters. A few blinks later was enough for her poor, white trash brain to process that it was actually a bed canopy, not a blanket. She had never actually seen one in person. Not like that, at least. Just the cheap netting kind that hung from the ceiling on a hoop that you could buy for cheap on Ebay.

"Thirsty?"

As she dropped her head to the side towards the voice, black popped across her vision, along with the vague sense that her skull had turned into a balloon. She blinked it away and squinted into the semi-darkness. A familiar man sat besides the huge bed that held her, holding a glass filled of tomato juice in his hand.

She got stuck between scowling and fainting again. But his eyes weren't glowing, so her face muscles spasmed towards something like a scowl. She moved to sit up, just to be overcome with the black fuzzies and her inflated head again.

"I'm floating off…" she mumbled.

Luckily, there were pillows to catch her when she fell back. Squishy pillows that were big enough to fit the bed they were in.

"Are you not thirsty, then?" he asked.

She threw an arm over her spinning head, hopefully to keep it in place. "What the hell, go away already."

"Any cravings? Burning sensations?"

She shot the guy a glare and managed to sit up the second time around. "I've got a pretty sore neck and a craving for vengeance." Now that she was looking at him, actually looking at him, he was pretty handsome. Not that meant anything good. The dangerous ones were always the pretty ones. And since this weird nightmare wasn't ending any time soon, "Did you just bite my neck and drag me back to your lair?" Suddenly, her light headedness made sense. "Did you suck my blood? Oh my god, are you a vampire? Because that is totally unsexy. I'll have you know I hated Twilight with every fiber of my being and I don't give a damn whether my blood tastes extra good or not, I'm dragging your sorry hide into the first speck of sunlight I can reach!"

The tall man blinked, his jaw relaxing in the barest trace of surprise. Then he sighed and set the glass of tomato juice on the nightstand—wait—

"Is that blood?" She hated how her voice had pitched up an entire octave.

"Yes."

"Why the hell do you—shit, is that my blood? Oh god oh god oh god—"

"Calm down. It's from a bloodbank." He ran a hand through his hair. "This is what I get for acting altruistically."

"Hell right!" Wait. She knew she was badass and all, but even she wasn't stupid enough to think her blood-deprived self was all that intimidating. "What?"

In answer, he just stood and walked to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?"

He closed the door behind him.

"What the hell!"

If he thought she was just going to sit there and wait for him to come back to cackle his Lord Dracula plans at her, he had another thing coming. Swimming through the mass of fluff which was the rich, California-Grand-Daddy-sized king bed, she no sooner had her feet beneath her then she was waking up on the floor, covered in cold sweat. Clenching her teeth, she rolled to her hands and knees and waited for the light headedness to pass.

"Maybe I should drink that blood." She almost laughed at that thought. And yack up curdled coffee beans of blood? No thank you.

It was laborious, but with some patience and determination, she managed to get upright without too much dizziness and took a turn about the room. The place was big enough to swallow her apartment and then some, which meant by the time she had reached the lone desk, she was out of breath and on the way to passing out again. She settled for the chair.

"At this rate I'll be bat food in no time."

She set her sweaty forehead onto the cool, dark wood.

A mistake. It allowed just enough of a calm for the hysteria to break through.

The tremors started at her feet, knocking her knees together and cramping up her abdominal muscles like a bad period. Her fingers knotted into her hair. Her throat clogged up.

"Oh man. Oh man ohman ohgodohgodohgod—Yugiiii." She screwed up her face against the terrified howl bunched up in her throat.

This was the part where Yugi was supposed to bust in and save the day. Destroy the monsters, solve the puzzle, wake her up from the bad dream with French toast and hot chocolate. Joey had done her part. She'd been brave, she'd been kick ass, now it was breaking and crumbling all about her and she couldn't breathe and Yugi was supposed to be here, Yugi had to be here, where was Yugi?

Even as she thought that, she saw the black, dragon like wings tear out from a white, bare back. Saw Yugi's long, crazy-dyed hair dangling out from the monster's arms.

When a small hand shook her awake, Joey's throat was raw from hyperventilation and she had curled up into a tight ball beneath the desk. On feeling the floor rather than her bed, she'd flinched back, her first instinct to think the handsome blood sucker had returned for more.

But it was a little boy crouched down into her cubby. He had big, dark blue chibi-like eyes that reminded her of Yugi's, and even if he hadn't been young, that in and of itself would have been enough to calm her. He wore adorably mismatched, but obviously high end clothes and had a long fluffy mane of black hair that reached down the entire length of his back. She would have thought him a girl if it weren't for the overwhelming boyish vibes he gave.

"Shh, shh, everything's going to be okay."

She curled deeper into her hiding space and looked away, as much to hide the tears as to show her displeasure. "I don't need some kid telling me that."

Yugi hadn't come. Thus, she now knew it wasn't a dream or a game.


	5. The Gilded Cage

**So sleepy...oh, thanks for the reviews. It's nice to know someone is reading my stories. ^.^ And that I'm not completely bombing at it.**

Chapter 4

She woke up from something deeper than sleep and dreamless. For a long while she didn't open her eyes, too weak to, and with nothing pressing rising to the forefront of her mind.

Then she swallowed, bring to attention to her swollen, painful neck. Something had been wrapped about it, and it throbbed against the bindings with each heartbeat.

Otherwise warm and comfortable, she opened her eyes slowly.

And met an anxious, crimson gaze.

The red-eyed prankster jerked back when he realized she was awake, but appeared too concerned to be properly embarrassed.

"How are you feeling? Are the bandages too tight? Do you hurt anywhere else?"

She looked at him drowsily until he got impatient and started to fidget.

"I can get you anything you want. Do you feel like eating? I have some stuff I know is good for bloodloss—a-and some herbal supplements, if you feel like swallowing pills, that is. I…I'm afraid I broke your phone. On accident, of course. I wasn't really expecting…"

He trailed off as she sat up. It was mostly difficult due to the fact she had been nestled in a giant, velveteen bean bag rather than her whoozy, weak body. He watched nervously as she took in the small, studio apartment. The windows had been covered with thick, black drapes, and posters depicting beautiful desert landscapes decorated the walls. There was an entertainment center with a TV, a small counter with a lone stool where the kitchen was, and very little else.

"Is this your place?" she asked. Then lightly smacked her head. "Of course it is. Not like you broke into someone else's apartment."

He made a weak attempt at a smile, but probably thought better of it and gave up after a few cheek twitches.

"You still haven't told me how you feel," he said.

She shivered. She had forgotten how nice his voice was. But then, it would be, wouldn't it?

"You're a vampire," she said, feeling the soft bandages around her neck. "I didn't just dream all that, did I?"

He nodded, but didn't draw away. She gave him credit for that. It couldn't be easy to admit that, especially after seeing that look of horror on his face when he had pulled back from her neck. She had never seen someone so…

"I'm okay," she said quickly. "My neck hurts, but the bandages aren't too tight. It kind of hurts to swallow."

"I was afraid of that." And he was in the kitchen before she had blinked. She flinched. "I might have…it seems your blood had some unforeseen affects that I haven't had to deal with before. It made me quite a bit more stronger than I am use to, so I may have bitten down hard enough to rupture your wind pipe." Just as suddenly, he was back again, offering a warm mug full of something spiced like autumn and sweet as chocolate. "I-I am again so sorry. I know this doesn't change anything, but sometimes I…lose myself."

She took up the mug. She wondered if she should be afraid, even as she took the first sip. Than a longer drag as the smooth, chocolate, cinnamon-clove something soothed the inside of her throat, and warmed the chilled parts of her, which weren't many. The nest the beanbag made about her combined with the thick, fuzzy blankets he'd swaddled about her were almost stifling.

"Do you always bring the people you bite back to your apartment?" she asked, again wondering why she didn't feel more afraid.

His expression darkened and he looked down. The action made her notice how dark and thick his lashes were, especially against the pallor of his clear, perfect skin. They contrasted with the sharp, blond bangs that framed his face and darted through the spikes of his hair.

"Usually they die," he said, lowly.

She frowned as even that brought no response within her. All she could think was that she had never woken up in such a soft bed, so carefully tended to. It brought warm, peaceful impressions of early childhood, when her mother was more aware and Yugi less independent.

"You probably can't help yourself," she said.

He glanced up at her, brow wrinkled in disbelief. "Well, yes, I'm not conscious when it happens, but…" He glanced at the mug she drank, then back up at her face. "It must be the shock. Don't worry, I'm in complete control now. I won't hurt you. I never intended to hurt you."

And Yugi just smiled at that. He had already told her that in word, action, and in the taste of whatever brew he had made her.

"That should soothe your throat, prevent infection and help it heal faster." He vanished again into the kitchen, momentarily startling her with the bang of a pot. "Sorry! Sorry. Dropped that. Are you feeling feverish? Weak? Tingling in your hands?"

"A little weak, yeah." Was he some kind of herblist? She took a closer look at the posters, wondering if there were some sort of reference guide or mushrooms hidden in the various landscapes. A tentative smell away from her drink told her of an underlying strong, but not unpleasant scent of spices and various other things she had only gotten hints of at health food stores. Mixed together with her drink, it gave the place the aroma of a span of sagebrush after it had rained.

He reappeared again with two capsules full of what looked like ground up grass.

"Do you think you can swallow these? They'll help with your blood production."

"Are you some kind of doctor?" she asked as she accepted them. A miniature Joey in her head started screaming about her lack of distrust in strangers, especially fanged male strangers that had brought her into their home.

"Um, more of an herbalist. Hospitals are a bad place for me to be."

"An herbalist vampire." He flinched at the word 'vampire.' "Huh. So what's the difference between these capsules and regular iron pills?"

To her surprise, he snorted. "Overloading your system with iron won't speed up the process. If anything it would just clog it up. Iron isn't friendly with the digestive tract at all. Nah. These contained concentrates of certain catalysts that lower the energy level necessary for the enzymes involved in blood production to connect. Lower energy means higher rate of reproduction and…" he frowned, having realized he had sat back off his haunches and had become more relaxed. "They'll just help. If nothing else they won't hurt. Though you have no reason to believe me."

She swallowed her drink, having already downed the pills. "I believe you."

Another brow crunching frown of disbelief. "Okay, what's wrong with you?"

"What?"

In answer he put his hand to her forehead. His fingers were cool and soft, with not a trace of the claws she had felt digging into her hair when he had dragged her behind the dumpster.

"No fever. Not really clammy." He took one of her hands from the side of her cup. "You're not even shaking."

"You haven't given me a reason to yet."

Oh yeah, that got her a look. "I just nearly killed you."

"But you didn't," she said with a small smile she often reserved for Joey when she did things like boob bouncing dances. "You probably brought me back here not just to make sure I was okay, but to figure out why. You don't seem like the kind of guy who relishes in killing people."

All wrinkles from his forehead dropped as he just stared at her. When he didn't look away, she started to get a little uncomfortable.

"Look, I'll probably freak out properly once I'm back home in bed tonight, and my best friend is always telling me I trust people to easily—"

"You do," he said flatly.

She pouted. "Did you do something while I was out?"

"No! I…" He shook himself. "Well, since it seems you've figured most of it out, I think you'll understand then why I can't let you leave. At least for a little while."

Now that got a proper response out of her. The blood drained from her face and she even wobbled a bit as a wave of light headedness went through her. He set a cool hand on her arm to steady her, a wry, unhappy grin on his lips.

"Getting a little scared now?"

"You're not letting me go home?" Her voice pitched.

"Just while I figure things out and…take care of something." He took the empty mug from her and set it aside. "You know that string of murders in the news? The ones where the bodies look like they've been mauled by a bear."

"That's you?" she actually had to sit back.

He threw his hands up in alarm. "No! No no no. But it is a vampire. I was on his trail when I got shot. That's what…" he ducked his chin apologetically. "The bloodlust's always there, naturally, but when we're wounded it sort of takes out our consciousness. That's why, you know…all that…happened."

Suddenly how he had acted when she had found him in the alleyway made sense.

"You were shot?" she asked.

Rather than answer that, he said, "The reason you're still alive is because I didn't need that much of your blood to be satiated, and somehow that little bit also multiplied my strength and speed. I could really use that in taking down this monster, not to mention that if he somehow caught wind of you..."

"Alright, I get it, I suppose." Didn't change how utterly weird this all was. But this weird dream didn't seem bad so far. His face had nice lines, now that she saw him in a better light. There was a sharp severity to the angle of his eyes, but she liked the way his mouth naturally fell into a determined line.

"I swear, once I've taken care of that mess I'll take you straight home. If I'm wounded again I plan on staying far from this apartment to take care of it, so you'll be safe."

"What about my mom and grandpa?" she asked. "Won't they notice I'm gone? If they haven't already."

"Yeah, about that," he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and a pen. "I'm going to need you to write a letter to them with something to explain that."

She looked at the pen and paper held out to her. Time seemed to still for a moment so she could take in the everyday outlines. It was the same cheap brand of pen she had bought for school. She had tested it out on Joey's shoulder to make sure she could use it to write homework reminders on her hand.

Seeing that bit of normalcy was what broke her free.

"No." She flipped off the heavy blanket, restraining a shiver as the cool air rushed in. "Thank you for your kindness, but I think you can handle your problems on your own. I'm going home."

He didn't move as she stood, but he didn't have to. Black rushed into her vision. She only got the barest warning of her knees growing weak before she was waking up, sweaty and trembling, back on the beanbag with her head hanging over his lap. She couldn't help but think that he didn't look so nice viewed from this angle. It made his eyes even sharper, shark-like, and the determined line of his mouth even grimmer.

"At least I know you're sane now. Please don't make me keep you this drained, because I can, with much pleasure," he purred in a way that gave her images of much more than simple bites. "You're not going to be able to walk out the door let alone across the city if I have to do that."

The frightened thoughts that had kept quiet up till then started leaking in.

"There's the look I was expecting." He patted the top of her head through the hanging curtain of her hair. "Let me know when you need something to eat, yeah?"


	6. Of Kin Will

**Please excuse how short this chapter is. The next chapter is over 3000 words and I will be posting it up tonight. Got to put some space inbetween chapters so people don't get confused and skip over chapters. Plan on writing the 7th one today. ^.^ And more, if I can. All depends on how attached to my arm my son is. Or more like whether he will take a nap.**

Chapter 5

Seto would have forgotten the stick of a girl was still in his house if she hadn't come bursting into his office, followed by an apologetic Mokuba.

"Until you find the bastard who took Yugi," she announced. "I'm not going anywhere."

Seto looked at Mokuba. Mokuba flailed his hands in the air, somehow managing to convey that he had done what he could to get her home like Seto had asked him to. Why the kid hadn't just asked one of their manservants to bodily haul the girl out by force was beyond him. It wasn't like his younger brother lacked the grit to do it.

He gave the girl another once over. Her face was so pale it had gone gray and he noticed her knees shaking. Since he was the one who had done that to her, despite her more or less asking for it by getting up in his face, he sighed.

"Sit down before you collapse."

Instead, she curled her fists.

"Tell your squirt to get off my case about kicking me out."

"That little squirt is my brother." He folded his hands and leveled a flat stare at her. He gave her ten seconds tops. "You are hardly in the place to be giving me orders."

Seven. "You're the one who sucked me dry!"

Five. "Then you'd be dead. If anything, you owe me your life for having the will not to do just that. Go away."

Three. "No!" Two. She wobbled.

He smiled. "You're an idiot."

One.

The chocolate brown eyes rolled to the back of her head. Mokuba barely managed to catch her shoulders and stopping her head from cracking against the floor.

He turned back to the computer screen, where a map of possible trajectories was displayed. Using satellite footage and accounts of some of his men around the area, he had narrowed down the monster's location to two places. He set to work pulling up images and square footage of each place.

"You gotta admire her will," said Mokuba. He grunted in effort as he started to pull the older girl onto a nearby couch.

"What are you doing?" Seto asked. "I said to get rid of her."

"Seto, she was rocking and pleading for her friend before she even noticed I was there. I think it would be crueler to send her off than just letting her stick around here for a few days. What harm could it do?"

Seto rolled his eyes. "Keep an especially annoying girl in the mansion of an overworked, irritated vampire. Great idea."

Mokuba scoffed, panting a bit as he got her upper half onto the couch. "Wow, she's way heavier than she looks. Must be all bone and muscle."

"If you don't get her out, I will." He finished typing in the URL specifics, picked up his phone, pressed speed-dial, and waited.

Mokuba managed to get the bottom half of the girl onto the sofa just as she gave a tiny, mewl like moan. It made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

On the other end of the line, the phone picked up.

" _Mr. Kaiba, sir?"_

"I have a young lady in my office I need you to take home," he said.

"Seto," said Mokuba impatiently. "I really think she should stay."

" _I will be there momentarily, sir."_

Seto hung up. "Alright, then. Give me a reason I can actually accept."

Mokuba squared his shoulders in the way that meant business. A fleeting memory of his younger brother doing the same thing at seven when asking to go to public school ran through his head.

"If you were her and it was me that had been captured, what would you do if the only person you thought could help you find me kicked you out, what would you do?"

"Her friend's most likely dead."

"Even so."

The roll of images that elicited gave Seto pause. He didn't even need to wonder. He'd be beating down the door, sabotaging their car, going tooth and nail at any obstacle in his way until they gave in or he died.

He glanced at the pale, unconscious girl, who despite her blood loss had pushed herself across his mansion. She definitely had the spunk to do it.

Then he saw his brother glance at her as well. The look he saw flash across his gaze solidified in his mind that his brother wasn't telling everything.

He felt a moment of guilt.

"Fine," he said. "Do what you want. But she stays here."

Mokuba snorted. "Good luck with that."

Seto rounded a hard glare on his younger brother. "No. You will make sure she stays here."

Mokuba threw his hands up again, not unlike when he had come in with her. "Alright! I got it."

One of the girl's thin, pale arms wriggled into the air. "Yessss." Came the triumphant hiss. Then, "Is there any way I could get, like, a blood transfusion or sumpthan? This blows."


	7. An Old Violence

**Here you go. Long chapter, just as I promised. Please let me know what you think.**

Chapter 6

As Atem smelled the oncoming of night, he told the guilty part of himself that the sleeping drug was important to keeping the girl—Yugi—safe. He couldn't leave her just to come back and find she had wandered off alone in an unsavory part of the city where anyone could find her, other vampires included.

Still, he was surprised at how readily she drank up the hot cocoa he gave her. She had only picked at the her food, which was to be expected. But the way she hugged the warm drink to her mouth unnerved him. It was almost as though she were seeking comfort from the sweetness.

And then, as her eyes had been closing, she met his and he knew she knew he had drugged it all along.

He stayed a good half hour after she had fallen asleep before finally leaving, locking the door tight behind him. Then he reached out for the shadows, curled them about him, and took off to the sky for the last place he had the trail of the vogue vampire. He found no pleasure from watching the city lights pass beneath him, or from the chill, nearly freezing air against his face. In fact, his usually clear, sharp mind was rather muddled with half-formed thoughts.

Really, there was nothing for him to feel guilty for.

The trail was a day old, now, and difficult to pick out beneath the multiple layers of scum the city tended to blanket over everything. He had to covertly get on the ground several times, like a dog. Twice he almost got hit by a car, as the extra speed he had gotten from Yugi's blood died down, which was a pity as he had been using it to cover the ground he had missed. Lucky for him the vampire seemed to linger near the back of a barred up pawn shop for a while. The scent thickened, as did the pounding of his heart.

Just as he thought he might be reaching the end of the trail, he came to the side of the Domino river, a sad, polluted thing encased by cement and sticky grass. Taking hold of the shadows again, he spread his wings and took to the other side to find the scent, but found nothing over several miles of shore.

The aching of his wings, which weren't built for long flights, brought him back down to the muddy ground, cursing.

"Do boats even go this far upstream?" he wondered aloud, eyeing the murky waters. Old and new warehouses crowded the shores further East towards the ocean, but here the river was narrow and hemmed by chain-link fences, streets, and a mixture of shopping malls and old apartment buildings. It wasn't the poorer parts of town Atem was use to, but neither was it all that rich either.

Figuring he should keep moving, in the case the gunsman from the night before should catch up with him, he stretched his wings for one last flight and took towards the ocean, where the warehouses might prove as a good hide out.

Just as the first of the metal warehouses spread beneath him, his screaming wings brought him back down, refusing to go any further. He tucked them back into his flesh and pulled his shirt back on, keeping an eye out for any discrepancies that might try to hide in the darkness. Built for the night, his vision pierced through every shadow, using the light from the moon like the noon day sun. Even so, the spaces between the tall, riveted metal buildings gave plenty of hiding spots for ambushing.

He took a deep breath. Rust. Metal. Water. Fume dyed cement.

And there, on the very edge of it, a familiar pungent smell, like melon that had been left out to mold.

Atem smirked wide. The tips of his lengthening fangs nicked the edge of his lips. Buried hunting instincts shot to the surface as he undid carefully placed mental holds, brightening his vision and bringing the scent of his prey to a vivid burning. He put took off his shoes and jeans to reduce noise and set them behind a set of old wood pallets and shrunk into the shadows.

Time seemed to lengthen. Each corner he rounded brought possibility. It just pleased him all the more that he couldn't make out the warm scent of live human. That meant he could go all out, and his instincts whooped with glee at the new freedom.

Countless corners later, he found him in an empty warehouse.

The vampire had a crazed, long mane of platinum blond hair that shone in the moonlight. He had his back to Atem and his focus to something between his feet as he sat on a long, short crate. Atem could smell something like blood off of him, but an old blood. Even so, it made his mouth water. He thought of the sweet, soft young woman waiting for him back home and the thought nearly turned him off from his prey entirely. But he still had his mind, along with the strength to school his instincts back to the target at hand.

Now the question: should he attack without warning or be chivalrous? This being was, after all, as self-aware as himself.

Then he took another whiff of the sweet blood on him and knew better. This one had killed.

"I can smell you."

Atem froze.

Yet the platinum blond vampire didn't look in his direction. He just kept doing whatever he was busy with, elbows jerking out with each shift.

"Even starving, I doubt one of your caliber would hunt down something like me when there is a city to be had. Best you get to the point."

Atem pushed himself to a stand, despite the desire of his instincts to stay low, quicker, faster.

Now would be the best time to attack. Sudden, and quick.

And yet a niggling in the back of his mind told him this vampire might more than he expected. And should Atem get injured again, he may very well kill Yugi off on returning home, if he didn't kill someone on the way. If only her blood had lasted him till this point.

Some spittle fell out as he opened his mouth to speak.

"You tore apart those people on the news." His elongated fangs made it difficult to speak.

The other man must have heard it, for he said, "Ah. You really must be hungry. And by your tone it would make sense that you are. Yami Atem. You've come to kill me."

Atem jerked back into a crouch, hackles raised. A part of him was surprised, but most of him wasn't. He had been around the block a few times.

The man put down whatever he was holding and turned about. He wore a simple, off-white shirt and jeans, but his eyes glowed a bright, fluorescent red, and the whites of his eyes had darkened to the color of dried blood.

Atem drew a step back. It was good that he had waited. This one was old. Very old. And therefore, very dangerous.

"I can smell her on you," he said in a low, snake-like hiss. A flash of purple tongue darted out to lick his lips. "Like butterscotch and lavender. You're hypocrisy is delicious—unless she's still alive? Oh, I bet she is. It's so…fresh."

Atem looked about, mind racing. The vampire's age changed everything. It was almost always the younger vampires that went on these gruesome killing sprees. The old ones got to live as long as they did because they knew better. After all, humans outnumbered them a million to one. But the longer Atem took in the other's traits, the more the vampire's age began to show, though to the untrained eye he would have looked like any other man in his twenties.

The blood red eyes caught Atem's, arresting his gaze.

"Oh, you're a little one," the vampire purred. "Cute."

"You need to quit these murders of yours. It's going to cause trouble for the rest of us." At least his fangs had pulled back to make it easier to talk, if only by a little.

"On the contrary, it's going to help quite a bit. So, if you're smart, you'll leave me to my business."

Atem couldn't help but growl, deep in his chest. After spending the better part of the month hunting down this guy? "I can't. You've killed innocent people and defiled their bodies. You're a monster."

"And so are you!" he crowed. "You really are cute."

Something metallic caught the corner of his eye and he gave an inward smirk. Speaking of young vampires…

"Fine, I can get drinking their blood," Atem continued. "But why did you have to tear them apart and make a scene?"

"Because it's easier to get to the parts I like that way? Honestly, a cute little thing like you wouldn't understand, so runalong. Don't make me tear you apart too."

"I'm not a child. I was twenty-four when I changed."

"And that's the height you have to show for it? Seriously, move along. I have things to do."

And then the vampire gave his back to Atem.

Atem took a quick glance in the rafters, just in time to see something shift out of sight, and the very, very thin silhouette of something that could be a rifle barrel.

Before he could think better of it, he leapt forward with the bare remains of Yugi's blood given strength into the vampire's shoulders. Using the momentum, he swung the other vampire around, exposing his chest to the rafters, just as a snap of thunder broke through the air. Dark, old blood spurted out and Atem's back hit the ground.

Just as quickly the old vampire was on him, face peeled back to reveal the mouth of razors, each tooth sharpened by a hundred years of human feasting. The gums had gone gray pink, and the lips stretched and stretched until they disappeared and all he saw was white.

Atem kicked with a yell. Enough of Yugi's blood remained to unseat the older vampire and roll from beneath him. Bullets threw up concrete as they pattered after him. As one grazed his shoulder, he screamed, "Shoot him! Not me!"

The old vampire, all fangs and lolling purple tongue and blond hair whirled towards the rafters, his front bathed by his own blood. Atem blinked and the monster was air born, leaping up to the rafters thirty feet above them like a cat. He heard a shout and the putter of bullets against the metal roof.

"Idiot!" he spat, even as he sprinted to the nearest metal support beam and scurried up it, claws squeaking as they grasped the metal.

Just as he reached the rafters, a body fell from them, twisting in mid air to land on their hands and feet. A rifle spun away just as a streak of white dropped like lightning. The gunsman ducked too late, getting a chest full of ancient claws and teeth.

Atem flung himself out. He tore his sore wings free from his back and shot into the ancient vampire's side and off of the huntsman.

Then it was a flurry of claws and screeching as the old vampire fell upon him instead. His human mind wasn't enough to keep up with the speed and his instincts took over, bringing his dripping teeth and claws onto any bit of flesh he could reach. White, blood stained shirt fell away with strips of tan skin, but the old vampire's flesh underneath was hard as stone.

Pain slashed through him. An arm gave way as teeth found a good chunk of his shoulder, bone included. Then an eye. A foot found his gut and clawed away at the muscle.

A bark of gunfire. The old vampire vanished.

And a new hand, much warmer than his adversary, yanked him up to his feet.

"Fly!" they shouted.

Atem spread his wings obediently, but he had brought them out at the wrong time and the delicate membrane and bones of one had been torn to shreds. Blinded by instinct, he only realized it after a few fruitless attempts to fly.

Another bark of the gun and the hand was pulling on him again, yanking him into a run. At least the muscles of his legs had been untouched, as he found his footing once again and shot out of the warehouse after the gunsman, what bit of his tattered wing he couldn't bring in flapping behind him like a banner.

He heard a beep. Then a low growl from his companion. "Mokuba."

A high, distant hum kicked to life. Just as he heard an inhuman screech of fury from the old vampire in pursuit, he heard a nearing, tell tale putter of helicopter blades. The animal that had taken over his mind balked in confusion, but what little he had left of his consciousness kept his legs running after the other tall, young vampire ahead of him.

The puttering became a full out roar from above, and Atem found the younger vampire dropping back to fling an arm around his middle. Atem squirmed and gnashed his teeth, alarmed.

"Hold still, midget, I'm trying to save our lives!"

Atem snarled, baring his teeth, and started clawing at the arm.

"Screw it."

Something tight wrapped about his throat. It cut his snarl short just as the vampire's arm took hold of the back of his torn shirt.

Then the ground fell away from beneath them. Far, far, far away, the loud puttering coming with them.

The next thing Atem knew he was holding an empty plastic pouch in which he had been sucking desperately on. Alarmed, he threw the pouch aside, coughing as his throat cleared and his teeth retracted. The loud puttering hadn't left, but surrounded him, as well as the metal walls of what could have only been the inside of the helicopter.

The tall, brunette vampire from the night before sat on the other side of the carrier, holding another plastic pouch of what could only be blood. He watched Atem with a flat, dry expression, and tossed the pouch into his lap.

Atem tried to leave it there, desperate to learn what had happened during his lapse of consciousness first, then felt the pang of his torn wing and lifted that pouch to his waiting fangs as well.

Blood. Human blood washed down his throat. It was cold and had a stale taste to it, but he melted with relief nonetheless.

The tall vampire tossed over a set of heavy headphones, having put a matching pair on his own head. Once Atem had finished off the pouch as well, he put them on his.

"Who was that?" asked his sort of savior.

Atem felt along the side for the mouthpiece and pulled it down.

"A very, very old vampire who I've been tracking down for the past few weeks. He's the cause of that string of bear attacks, the ones who were torn apart."

"I gathered that much. How do I know it wasn't you?"

Atem gaped at him.

"You went through all that to save me—"

"—Because you saved me," he said sharply. "I don't do debts. But we're even now, so I plan on shooting you in the head once you give me the answers I need. Why's a thing like that in the city? What's brought him here? If he's old he probably has other places to be or a brain to realize he's asking to be killed."

Atem managed a wry grin. "Saying you're going to kill me once you've got your answers doesn't give me much incentive to keep talking."

"Then I'll just kill you now." He pulled out a rather thick looking pistol from underneath his leg and leveled it at Atem's eyes.

Atem raised an eyebrow.

"Blow out my brains and it won't kill me," said Atem slowly.

"Blow out your jaw and it will leave you writhing for eternity for want of blood," said the man, calmly. "Unless you're going to tell me that even that heals in time? I wouldn't know. I'm new at this."

"Obviously," said Atem, taking in the very human sheen of the other man's blue eyes and his still somewhat sweet scent. "I'm impressed you haven't gone on a killing spree yourself. You seem to be right at home in your faculties."

"Blood banks are a wonderful thing. Now, if you wouldn't mind," He cocked his gun.

Atem narrowed his eyes. "I'm afraid I can't tell you much. From what I know, old vampires don't do killing sprees. They're old because they refrained from doing just that, and as one ages their need for blood decreases as well. They're durable, though, and more monster than human when put on the defense. If we had stayed there, the two of us would have been shredded in only a matter of time."

The other man's eyes jumped from one of Atem's to the other. Atem didn't move a muscle, nor did he look at the pistol.

"Why were you hunting him?" he asked.

Atem snorted. "Wouldn't you? He's killing people left and right—innocent people. Not to mention it's sort of my hobby to put down vampires, which is why I don't blame you for hunting me down. The less vampires there are in the world, the better."

That gave the other man pause. The barrel of his gun glanced up, more towards his scalp than his eyes, as the young vampire lowered his steely blue gaze to get a better look at Atem.

"That's rather humane coming from the mouth of the monster who changed me," he said, slowly, with a paced, solid quality.

Atem frowned. "Excuse me?"

"At the Blue Obelisk night club, May 29th at about midnight, I pulled you off a girl in a backroom and you took to me instead. You sucked me dry and when I woke up in my home, I had a rather severe taste for people and attacked the nearest one. Don't tell me there's someone else in the city with your stupidly dyed hair and red eyes attacking people."

Atem blinked again and cocked his head to the side. This vampire did look familiar, though Atem couldn't place from where.

"I'm sorry," Atem said carefully. "I don't know if you've experienced this before, but when the bloodlust gets too much instinct takes over and turns off conscious will. It's like blacking out."

"Then you should have drunk enough from me to come to," the other snarled, baring his teeth. The pistol returned to his face. "You don't honestly expect me to believe you."

Atem threw up his hands, though kept his expression calm. "Look, if I bit you, I don't remember. I try to subsist on animals, and I've learned a way to sort of direct my bloodlust towards back alleys and places with less people. I don't think I'd ever purposely wander into a crowded club. Besides," he couldn't help but smile a little here. "After thirty years, every vampire's eyes turn red."

For a long space of time, they stared one another down.

Then, much like one puts down an enormous weight, the other vampire lowered his gun.

"It takes the fun out of it if you don't look even a little bit afraid." He reached for a black cooler besides him and took out another blood pouch. Rather than offer it to Atem, he bit into it much like a Capri Sun juice pouch and leaned back, scowling.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you?"

"You better be," he muttered around the plastic. How he didn't spill a drop was impressive.

Atem took his chance to breathe as the other vampire had his meal and watched out the nearest window as light from skyscrapers passed, along with the blinking red of a few radio towers. Once the other had tossed aside the empty plastic pouch to lick his teeth, Atem dared to ask where they were going.

"Unless you have any qualms to being my prisoner, my place."

Atem flinched. "Yes, I do."

"Funny. I take that back. I don't care."

"I have someone at my place who needs me. You can't just take me—"

"Yugi Motou, I presume?" he asked, startling Atem for the second time in the past hour. "Yeah, I've got a rather annoying mutt at home who won't leave until she has her. It will make things easier if you give me your address so I can pick her up."

But Atem didn't like the sounds of that. While the old vampire had been a force to be wary of, young vampires were unpredictable and volatile. The idea of Yugi being in his grip, let alone Atem being his prisoner and prey for who knew how long, did not appeal to him in the least. And while it would make it easier for Atem to dispose of him the moment he decided to do something stupid, this young man's access to firearms—and a damn freaking helicopter—told him the likelihood of him having the upper hand enough to do that was slim indeed.

He moved to his side, trying to make it look like he was simply shifting to a more comfortable position. As he did so, he let his farthest hand lay fingers on the bottom side of the helicopters sliding door and sent the thinnest, most concentrated tendril of shadow he could manage loose.

"Why make me a prisoner?" he asked conversationally. "Why not just kill me now?"

"Because you're the only coherent vampire I've met up to this point," said the man, stretching out his long legs. "And, as I've said, I'm new to this. I want to milk your brain for anything I can use before I go after that crazy old, undead thing. Also," a wide smirk, not unlike the old blond vampire's, stretched across his face. Atem thought he even saw a fleck of red streak across his iris. "Revenge is best served warm and preferably squirming."

The end of the shadow tendril hooked onto a stream of air. A metal latch.

"Thanks for the blood," Atem said.

Before the other could choose to respond to that, the door flung open behind him and Atem fell out into cold, pure sky.


	8. Pity or Need?

**Again, excuse any typos or stupid mistakes. I didn't read this to my husband before posting it up, and that's usually my way of editing before doing so.**

Chapter 7

Once more, the vampire's sharp eyes made that shark-like look as he came towards her. The lines of his face that she had momentarily admired now only served to accentuate the sharp, bleach blond bangs and fangs sticking from his lips.

She tried to speak, appeal to his better nature, the one who had had that look of horror when he pulled back from her neck, but all she saw was the mindless red from the alley. The beast had taken over. And it was thirsty. Desperately so.

Her throat her. Her legs wouldn't listen. His weight came down on her, and her arms pushed hopelessly on his chest. Spit dripped from his mouth and onto her face.

"Joey," she gasped. "Grandpa. Mommy. Anyone."

Her view filled with wild, red tipped black hair and she felt the pinprick of needles on her neck.

But the sharp pain she remembered came from her finger.

She blinked and the black hair gave way to the dark, velvet underside of her eyes. But her finger still hurt, though not as bad. Something soft, warm, and wet licked at the pain, soothing it.

With a heavy slowness of a sleep that wouldn't lift, she flopped her face to the side of the hurting hand and opened her eyes. When at first she saw the mess of wild dark hair and streaks of unnatural yellow, she thought her dream must be true. It didn't help that he was flush against her side on the bean bag with one leg thrown over hers. Her heart hitched. She started to tremble, than to cry.

The vampire pulled back from where he had curled about her hand to give her a bleary, half-lidded look. As their eyes met, the fear wavered in the sudden overwhelming impression of a baby pulling back sleepily from its mother's breast.

Then she saw the little bead of blood from the tip of her index finger, the hand of which was held firmly, but gently, in his hands.

He blinked. Then after grazing his nose against her arm, he went back to his suckling. The pain peaked a bit, and she winced, but she had to admit it wasn't too bad. She could feel her mini, mental Joey rolling her eyes at that thought.

But after a minute or so, her finger fell out of his mouth with a little 'pop' and his face slid down the incline of the beanbag and nestled against her side. By his slow rhythmic breathing, she assumed he had fallen asleep, though he had hardly looked awake to begin with. At least she knew now that vampires slept.

Then she noticed what he was wearing. Blood stains and dirty boxers. And nothing else. Not even socks, though she was certain she had last seen him fully clothed and ready for a night of vampire hunting.

"Good crap, what happened to you?"

If she had been expecting an answer, she didn't get one. Though she was starting to get nervous again. It was hard to tell through all the dried blood if he was unhurt. Hadn't he told her that injuries mad the bloodlust worst? Wasn't that why he attacked her on her way to school in the first place?

Now fully awake, she groaned. School. She had never been the best student, but she took school seriously enough to do alright—until now. There was no telling what this extended absence would do to her workload. Not that her mother would notice. She didn't notice much. But Grandpa would be all dismay and worry, and Joey…

Joey…

Another problem came to Yugi when her bladder let her know it was time for her first morning whizz. She wriggled, twisting her hands into the material of the beanbag as a leverage, and pulled. She fully expected the vampire to tighten his grip on her arm, but her hand slipped out easily enough. His face followed her though, nuzzling into the abyss of the beanbag where she left until the rest of him followed after, and she was left with a full grown man curled up on his side like a child, half eaten by black felt.

A part of her smiled, but the majority of her still flinched back from her nightmare and her sore fingertip. She found the bathroom easily enough, but it wasn't until she locked the door behind her that she realized she had been able to get up without passing out. Yeah, her head still hurt and felt a bit light, and her feet were a little unsure beneath her, but she was conscious. That was leaps and bounds better from the day before.

 _Guess he really does know his stuff_. Even as she thought that, she could smell aromic herbs from the hand soap. She even found unlabled plastic bottles in the shower, which, on sniffing, definitely didn't smell of fresh blood, but the same trace of lemon and mint she had caught a whiff of from his hair.

He was certainly not what she had expected of a vampire.

Since she was there, she figured she might as well get clean. Showers usually helped her to reorganize her thoughts, and it wasn't like she felt up to try and escape the vampire, asleep or not. Just because she had made it to the bathroom without passing out didn't mean she didn't have to sit down once she got there.

She tried out his shampoo, found she loved it whether her guess was right or not, and was just lathering up a homemade bar of soap, also lemon scented but with cocoanut as well, when a knock came at the door.

"Yugi?"

She sighed. She wanted to say something Joey-ish, like, "Yes my blood-thirsty captor?" But since she wasn't Joey, no matter how hard she tried, what came out was, "I'm just taking a shower, if that's okay."

"That's fine, I just—how is your head feeling? You don't feel like passing out still, right?"

Now this confused her. Why did he keep insisting on acting nice? It was starting to get creepy, because he had no reason to be. She was his prey and prisoner more or less, at least until he killed whoever, but even then it wasn't solid.

The look on his face from the night before and her nightmare rose to the forefront of her mine. Despite the hot water, she shivered.

"Yugi?"

"Just…Just give me a minute." She turned off the water and stood there, dripping and naked, until it returned to her just where she was. Cold, light-headed, and vulnerable, she stepped out and reached for the plain, blue towel. As she lifted her arms to dry her head, staring at the old, ragged woven carpet on the floor, darkness started to cloud her vision. A roll of nausea went through her.

 _I can't forget…what his true face is…_

A firm arm held up her shoulders. The darkness was giving way to the amber bulbs atop the bathroom mirror. The vampire's spikey hair came into view.

"Can you see me yet?"

She took a deep breath, frightfully aware of the fact that only a towel was between her and him, and not very well. He must have thrown it over her as an afterthought.

More vulnerable and cold than ever, she couldn't help the rock tightening up her throat and the burning of her eyes. She didn't like this. She didn't like being held up by a stranger, naked, in his bathroom, unable to even take a shower without passing out.

Suddenly, the lemon and mint scent smelled like the ward of a hospital where dying people go. Too clean, sterile, and sharp.

Since she couldn't imagine herself being any more humiliated than she already was, she didn't fight back the tears. Only brought a hand up to her face.

"Yugi…"

She cringed when she felt his other arm slide beneath her knees. He didn't even grunt as he lifted her and carried her out of the bathroom. When he moved to set her down, the towel began to slide down her hardly there chest, and she squeaked in alarm. But just as she reached it, he threw the thick, fuzzy blanket over her. Hand down, she managed to get her first view of him through tear blurred vision.

His brow had wrinkled in pain. Even the sharp lines of his eyes seemed to have soften.

His fingertips brushed her tears away so carefully, the touch was hardly there.

"I'm sorry," he said, softly. "I promise I have no intention of hurting you. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Last night," she started.

"Last night I said only what I felt I had to. The vampire I'm hunting is too strong even for me, and I'm going to need your help to stop him. After that…" A wry little smile curved his mouth, sad and defeated. "I was never too attached to this existence anyways."

She rubbed at her eyes hard and had to blink a few times to clear her vision. He was still caked in blood.

"What happened?" she asked.

He frowned then looked down. "Oh. Like I said, he was stronger than I expected. Got some help, though, so I'm not hurt. You don't have to worry about me hurting you."

She frowned as well, wanting to point out her finger, but even as she looked down at it she couldn't even tell if it had been pierced or not. It had been little more than a prick.

But he followed her gaze, and something like a blush colored his pale cheeks.

"I, uh…" he touched her finger, or more like grazed over it with the passing air of his hand. "I'm sorry about that to. Like I said, I'm not too attached to this existence. I'm disgusting."

With that, he went to the closet, where a dresser had been stuffed in there. He pulled out a pair of briefs, some sweats, and shuffled about for a bit until he found a purple t-shirt.

"Here. Some clean clothes. I would offer to buy you some more, but that would be all levels of awkward so I'll just clean what you…" He paused as an enormous yawn had its way with him. Then he shook his head. "Food. Medicine. Then I need to get to the poultices."

"Don't you need to sleep?" she asked, though she didn't really care.

"I'm a vampire," he said, as though that were answer enough. "I'll live. Besides, the power nap should be enough."

He tossed the clothes atop her blanket.

"I won't look," he said. "In fact, I'll be outside getting some herbs I left to dry. I'll knock before I come in."

She couldn't help herself. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

That seemed to confuse him as well. "I'm being nice?"

"Talking so sweet, giving me clothes, making me medicine and food—it's, uh, kind of weird. I mean," she gave another hefty sniff. "You were all trying to get me scared of you yesterday—and you're still covered in blood!"

"My own blood," he said, like a post script. "But I don't see what I'm doing as nice. For all intents and purposes, you should be dead, and I've kidnapped you. Unless," he gave her that smile, the smile that spoke of something other than bites and blood. "You want me to act more appropriately to the situation."

In answer, she yanked the blanket over her head.

He chuckled,said something under his breath, and opened the door. When it thumped closed, she peaked over the blanket to make sure he was gone, then begun the process of heaving herself out of the pit which was the bean bag all over again.

His clothes hate her, but didn't drown her as other clothes often did. It made her come to terms with the fact that he wasn't all that tall for a guy. His sharp features and crazy hair sort of detracted from that, but the fact that the shirt stopped above her knees said short.

The urge to smile again came and went. So did the crazy thought that maybe they could be friends once this was over and done with.

 _Joey would hear none of it_ , she told herself. Not to mention there was a whole world of drama that came with getting too deep with a vampire that she didn't want to get into. Like, what if he made her a vampire? She thought about waking up with the body of someone she had sucked dry in her hands and felt another wave of nausea, as well as pity. That couldn't have played nice with the vampire's mental health.

No, not the vampire. Atem. He had told her his name the same time he had asked for hers.

Atem came back in with an armful of what looked like dried weeds, and it looked as though he had found the time to scrub himself clean somewhere outside, for not a speck of blood was in sight and his pants were damp. He peeked around to get a look at her and she could see the smile in those inhuman, red eyes. But he didn't say anything about it, but took his herbs to his kitchen counter without comment.

"I'm not going to turn into a vampire…right?" she asked from where she stood awkwardly next to the beanbag. Even as her head started to float, she didn't want to be ensnared by it again.

"If you haven't by now, it's unlikely that you ever will," he said. "You should sit down. At least until you've eaten something."

She made do with sitting on the ground. A thick, black shag carpet had been set over the hardwood floor that she hadn't noticed before. "So…people turn into vampires at random?"

"After their bitten, yeah. I've never been able to figure out why. I think it's up to genetics." He turned on the facet and paused, looking somewhere past her head. "Maybe that's why…"

She cocked her head to the side. "Why what?"

He looked back down to the sink, waited a second, then turned off the water. "That vampire who is tearing up his victims? I found out last night he's very old, and that's strange for an old vampire to do. They should know better than to draw attention to themselves, that's why they've lived so long. But if he was afraid of his victims turning into vampires, that would explain why he tore them up when he was done." Atem frowned and turned back to his pile of dried bushes. He lifted out a strand and started to do something with it that she couldn't see.

A drop of cold fell into her stomach. "Just how old was he?"

"Hundreds of years. Could be even a thousand."

Now that was surreal. "How old are you?"

"Not to old," he lifted a dried leaf to the kitchen light. "Not even three hundred yet. And I spent a good portion of that on my own in Zion's canyons. I only left once some settlers came in and realized something in the dark was making some of their folk disappear."

Yugi couldn't help but be stunned at this. "You killed people?"

He paused in his scrutiny to give her an odd look over the counter.

"Every vampire has killed someone," he said flatly. "Whether they remember it or not." He turned back to his herbs, taking a bowl down from a cupboard. "Even drinking animal blood, I'm only good until I get injured badly enough. Remember that."

"Why?"

"Because the moment you start to pity my kind is the moment your life is forfeit. Which is also why the moment your blood is replenished I'm taking what I need to take down the old menace and dropping you home."

"Then why not just take me home now?"

A click of metal told her he had some scissors or something, and he had snapped them closed.

"Why indeed."

But he didn't answer that question, nor did he stop himself from switching the doorknob around on the door so one of the locks were on the outside.


	9. Help a Girl Feel Useful

**All I want to do is write. Why do I have to be an adult with adult responsibilities?**

Chapter 8

Despite recovering from a blood transfusion, Joey made sure to be on Kaiba the moment he walked through his big-ass door. Not even discovering that the wet stuff on his black clothes was blood deterred her from pinning him with her sharpest glare.

"Well?" She jammed her sharp fists onto her hips.

Kaiba didn't even blink. "For someone with such a strong will to live, you're sure intent on dying."

Joey harrumphed and jerked her chin up. "If you had it in you, you would have killed me yesterday when you had your disgusting mouth on my neck."

Kaiba stared. Then smirked. "Didn't you wet yourself and pass out from fear when I did that?"

That did make Joey falter, though only long enough for Mokuba to move around his older brother and flash Joey a winning smile.

"Joe! How are you feeling?"

"Better, thanks to you," said Joey, returning the smile. She couldn't help it. The kid had not only proven to be an easy ally, but a complete sweetheart. He had done everything from get Joey food and new clothes to sharing the latest Kaiba Corp video games with her until she'd promptly passed out. Seriously, lifelong friendships were made over half-awake Call of Duty tournaments.

Kaiba gave a closed mouth chuckle. "Now that's rich."

Joey wrinkled her nose at him. "What? Don't like how easy it is for your brother to be nice when it's like pulling teeth for you?"

In answer, Kaiba just smirked and walked on past her.

"Hey! You didn't answer my question!" Joey shouted.

"What question?"

"Where's Yug? What happened? What's with the blood?"

"I've already told you, your friend's probably dead. An old vamp even said he smelled her blood on my target tonight. Said it was fresh."

Joey's blood went cold. "Bastard!"

"He also said he thought she was still alive," added Seto, like an afterthought. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm tired."

That was so not cool. The dipweed jerkiness of this guy was hitting punching levels, and man, would it feel good. "Of course you are. Dracula has to get his sleep. Tell me, if I throw open the curtains, will you poof into dust? Because I'm really feel'n the urge to make a good hourglass or zen garden right now."

"Sadly, no. But that doesn't mean you won't turn into dust."

"By what? The power of your supernatural fury?"

"Something like that," Seto was already up the foot of the stairs. Joey was almost glad that he didn't show any signs of being in pain or hampered by anything, as pity or compassion would have interfered with the heat of her laser death eyes. She didn't even turn it off until he was upstairs and out of sight.

Behind her, Mokuba heaved a heavy sigh, which quickly turned into a yawn.

"Do you guys have to fight?" He rubbed his eyes blearily. "Seto actually did verify that she was still alive. I heard them talking, him and that other vampire."

Joey let out a rather unlady-like noise. "Dare he should mention that. Speaking of sleep, you should get some shuteye, kid. I can't believe that jerk brother of yours lets you out all night to fly a helicopter. Coulda died."

Mokuba gave her a smile she was beginning to recognized was more tolerance than actual amusement. "Please don't say such things around my brother. I can't think of anything I enjoy more than helping him out, and I'm the only one he can fully trust. Don't worry, Joe, Seto would never let anything happen to me. Not without making sure it went through him first."

Joey turned away, rubbing her nose in slight embarrassment that she had offended Mokuba, even though he wouldn't say it. Even after she apologized, Mokuba waved it off as though nothing had happened.

"You know how to get food if you need it, right?" he asked instead, which did nothing to stem Joey's guilt.

"Sure, yeah. Hey, what can I do to help? You know, while you two are out?"

After another wide yawn, Mokuba looked off to the side, thinking.

"Well, there is this problem we hit upon when searching for the vampire's base. The two places we checked out didn't have a bit of his scent anywhere, but Seto thinks it's likely that this guy might have figured out a way to cover his scent. Problem is, one of the places is a big old apartment complex, and Seto can't very well break into every apartment for signs of a vampire."

Joey blanched. "Uh, I can't do that either."

"Silly, I wasn't suggesting that. I was suggesting…look, me and my brother aren't exactly undercover. If we go around knocking on doors and asking question, it might alert the vampire. But you're, well…"

"Magazine cover and billboard material?"

Mokuba gave him a winning smile. "Yeah, and so it would be way more undercover and quiet if you just went and checked them out."

Joey folded her arms, frowning. "That's great and all, but what am I looking for? All I know about vampires is six foot something with a spiked bat stuck up hi…is grouchy."

"Leave that to me. We have a list of stuff we've made up for any help we've hired in the hunt. I'll get that to you along with the addresses and let Roland know that he's at your disposal for the day."

Once more, Joey reiterated how quickly she was falling in love with this kid. He really did know how to make a girl feel useful.


	10. The Unwanting Killer

Chapter 9

Seeing Yugi unconscious and naked on his bathroom floor, save for a towel over her hips, reminded him of how disconnected from humanity he had become. When he saw her humble, firm breasts, white skin, and fairy like proportions, all he could feel was that of a man looking down at a steak after a week of greens and bread. But even 300 years wouldn't be enough for Atem to forget what he would have once thought as a man, when a woman had elicited awe and want of a human nature and not one of an animal after food.

But she wouldn't know that, so he threw the towel over her before easing up her legs and bringing her head towards them, hoping to assist the circulation of oxygen laden blood to her head.

When she woke up and promptly started to cry, something rent in his chest. But it wasn't an entirely new feeling. It was one that had plagued him from the beginning, and never failed to remind him that his existence was that of a disease, and the only way to make it anything more than that was by taking efforts to stem that disease from off the rest of humanity.

And yet, even as he thought that, even as he bathed in the shame and pity, he found himself drinking in her words like an elixir to his soul. There had always been a part of him he had never been able to fully numb against his own loneliness. As she asked him frank questions, her thoughts and emotions displayed in her large, doe-like eyes like her slender body had been on the floor, he found those decades upon decades worth of protections on his sensitivity torn away. Sure, he talked to his patients and customers. Sure, he talked to enough humans to stem their suspicion, as well as to ask questions that could lead to possible targets. But those had never allowed for such openness, only available to other diseased creatures like himself.

Talking to her, he felt almost…human. Maybe even normal, if he could ever remember what that had been like.

So when he checked his mental list and saw the plan to turn the doorknob around so that he would have a way to lock her in his house, while his conscience faltered, the starving, crazed-lonely part of him screamed at the thought of the day when he would have to give her away—or if she should flee and vanish far farther than the other side of the city.

But he couldn't explain that to her, just as he couldn't explain that he couldn't get aroused from the female body anymore, because his warped senses only registered meat.

Still, it was physical pain when he met her eyes and saw the confusion in them. In attempts to alleviate it, he asked her if she wanted to come with him on his deliveries. But the jump of excitement and desperation for sunlight he saw next was almost as bad.

He at least convinced her to wear a head scarf, or a hijab, that he still had from his homeland, as well as some sunglasses. She didn't ask, and he didn't explain. They both knew he didn't want her description getting out before he had had time to do his business with her.

"And the exercise will do you good," he told her. "It will help stimulate the production of blood cells faster than sitting around would. Even so, let me know if you need to rest."

When her eyes looked up at him, waiting for the sunglasses, he hesitated. She really did have such a pretty face. It reminded him of cherubim, or the round faces of angels he had once viewed in the chapels of Europe. Had that really been so long ago?

Then he donned his own, heavy tinted sunglasses (his eyes were made for the night after all), took his basket of goods and headed out.

He hadn't really thought to wonder what she would think of his way of business until his first patient, a young single mother with stress in the creases of her eyes, opened a door two floor beneath his apartment and broke into a sunny smile.

"Atem! I'm so happy to see you."

Instantly he became worried. "Has she gotten worse?"

"Oh, no, her fever broke two days ago, just like you said it would, and even her cough has gotten better! I can't thank you enough. There's no way I could—" she broke off with a heavy, nasty cough.

"Just as I thought." He held out the little plastic bag of herbs. "You've caught it too. Best you serve this for yourself for the next week too. Same rules. Two cups a day, boiled five minutes. And your son?"

"Not even a sniffle," she said, once she cleared her throat. "Same price as before, right?"

"If you can. No pressure."

"No, you're worth ten times more, I'm not a thief. Wait here."

She took the bag from him, then returned with a twenty dollar bill and a half clothed six year old girl at her heels. She threw up gummy hands for Atem to see.

"Look! I'm all better!"

He felt himself soften, eased from just a bit of the stress and pain he had felt from before. "Nice work. Not skipping your veggies, right?"

"No sir! I ate every nasty bit!"

They had a little bit of a laugh at that before her attention turned to Yugi more or less trying to hide behind him.

"Who's that you got with you? A girlfriend?" Even beyond the smile, he could almost smell the tinge of jealousy.

Inwardly, he sighed. Yet another reminder. He could smell the hormones from girls interested in him and it did nothing but give him a slight, queasy feeling. The hormones didn't smell exactly good to an uninterested vampire.

"A cousin, come to help me with my deliveries. We're having to take it slow, so we best be going if I'm to deliver all these."

The easing of the tension in the woman's gaze didn't comfort him. "Of course! Thanks so much again."

They stopped by three more units in his apartment complex, all just as cramped, old, and with a sunbleached patio just like his, before Yugi said something.

"So…you're like a visiting doctor?"

"Herbalist," he said, mind still ticking through the symptoms his last patient had prescribed to him. While the patient had been pleased with the result of his pills, he didn't know if that meant she was getting better or the placebo effect. She was 78, after all, and had known him for quite some time.

"Alright. But, I'm sorry if this comes off as rude, but what business does a vampire have making medicine for people?

"Plenty, I'd think, since my existence has ended lives. This doesn't even scratch the surface, but at least it helps me stay sane. Besides, I was into this before I was changed."

He couldn't help but feel pleased as he sensed more than saw her eyes widen behind the sunglasses at him.

"You mean back three hundred years ago? Were you a doctor then?"

"No. But my father was. And his father." He stopped at the old, heavily graffitied bus stop and looked off to the smoggy skies, relishing in the feel of recollecting memories with company. "I was to continue a reputable line of cure and relief. I even grew up helping my mother deliver babies. She was a highly trusted midwife in the village and was looked to for help even more often than my father."

"That's wonderful," Yugi murmured.

Thinking she might really think that made him want to turn and hug her, perhaps express even an inkling of the gratitude he felt for her. But, knowing he had done enough to unnerve her, he merely continued on with his story.

"Since I didn't age, I had to keep moving. That often meant I couldn't stay long enough to build a reputation as a doctor. Traveling did help me learn a lot, though, again, because of my unnatural youth and my…weakness to blood, I had to stay away from things like surgeries and the like. A lot of my education came from travel, experience, and learning from others." He felt a strange rush of boyish need to impress. "I can speak fifteen languages."

"No kidding," she said, sounding rightly impressed. "Where were you originally from?"

"Egypt." He hesitated. "I was born in the Christian year of 1736. I'm sorry, isn't this weirding you out?"

"Oh, totally," she said, with that same blank honesty he was coming to admire. "But it's also fascinating. You're fascinating. Is that okay?"

He hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as he glanced at her. He was stuck between feeling more stupidly fuzzy and pleased than he had in centuries, and worried she'd become too comfortable with him, and therefore, other vampires.

"Just don't think…" But he was like other vampires. There was no difference between him and they. They had all killed. They all lusted blood. They were all a blight.

"I'm not going to go protesting vampire rights," she said, the laughter in her voice softened by a kind compassion that made his lungs go a little tight. "Could you tell me how you…you know. Got changed? What it was like?"

He could see the city bus coming up around the corner, but knew for a fact that people rarely cared too much about what they heard, as long as it wasn't too alarming. Still, his story could qualify for that, and also…

But the fuzzy sensation of being called fascinated by her drugged him. He had already denied her freedom. How could he deny her anything else? Anything at all?

"I grew up in a village not far from the city of Thebes. How I became what I am today is because I wanted to marry the daughter of a family far richer and of better blood than my own. But because my father had saved the lives of both her parents and siblings from a horrible sickness, they listened to my desires via my father." The bus had come to a stop and it's scratched, worn doors hissed open. "We were to be married only a few months hence. But I was impatient, as many young men are, which brought my end all the much sooner."

Once they had squeezed into the back, eyeballed by a few weary passengers, he went on to tell her, in quiet but clear tones, about how he had been caught up in the beauty of his bride to be and impatient to show her of said admiration. He had managed to convince her to meet him somewhere private, but when he found an excuse to touch her she threw herself on him. As he told Yugi of his horror to find that, it wasn't out of love that she had embraced him with, but blood lust, he got the pleasure of seeing her full sympathetic horror as she took off her sunglasses to wipe the sweat from her nose.

His betrothed drained him nigh to death, and when she pulled back, rather then calling for help, she hid his body in some bulrushes and fled the scene.

The next thing he knew was the thirst. Then waking up to find a stranger dead in his arms and the taste of blood on his lips.

He tried to find his betrothed, to get an explanation, just to find that she had fled the city the night she had hid his body in the bulrushes. He had tentively tried to continue life as usual, but as the blood thirst came upon him, so strong in his newly formed vampiric body, and news of the body of the man he had accidentally killed, he too fled. He planned to find his betrothed, staying alive off of the blood of beggars and eventually whatever animal he could get his hands on. He started a life spent in the night, afraid of his existence, and mourning for what he had lost. The only comfort he found was his seemingly superhuman strength, his ability to fly, and the occasional opportunity he found to treat those too poor to afford the attentions of a doctor.

It was 20 years later when he finally found her again. Alas, she had become a shade of her former self. The beauty was still there, but there was a demon inside, lost in the mindless pursuit of blood. She had been the one to originally start the sickness in her family, and had even returned to quiet them should anyone start to piece together what she was.

She became the first vampire he ever killed.

"She didn't stay dead, though," Atem watched Yugi's eyebrows shoot up with a smile.

No. He ended up having to drag her malformed body around until he learned the proper way to kill a vampire.

"You have to tear out their heart," he told Yugi. "All of it. Aorta, nodes, everything. Then you burn it and the body, but in different fires, and far from any human, as the fumes from the burning bodies is a poison to them. If you don't, the heart will grow back in the body and the vampire will just wake up more ravenous than ever."

"Aren't you—why are you telling me this?"

"What?"

"How to—how to kill a vampire. I mean," she glanced to the side.

He gave her an easy smile, trying to convey the warmth he felt. "Vampirism is just a disease, Yugi. So far, death is the only cure I have come up for it. It just hurts people."

"But you don't just hurt people," she said. "Who knows how many lives you've saved just because you've existed."

He flinched. He had already told her it didn't matter, that he had still been the cause of premature death, but decided to continue on with his story anyways.

He had gone to Europe and throughout Asia and learned what he could there about herbs. It had taken a lot less longer than he had hoped, and by the time he was heading back to his homeland, news of the new world had reached him. He had grown weary of human company, tired of hurting and waking up from episodes with bodies in his hands, so he went to the new world in hopes of finding a stretch of land where he could be alone. He found that out west, far past the Indian tribes, in a beautiful canyon that could have been carved out by the very hand of man.

And, well, she knew the rest. He lived there quite happily, occasionally getting a visit from a native seeking his cures or expertise, but otherwise alone, until some Mormon pioneers settled in the canyon. While the natives had been wise enough to stay away from the flash-flood prone canyon and the mysterious foreign man with blood red eyes and the ability to fly, the Mormon pioneers had been a fearless, as well as harmless lot.

It had worked until a particularly dry season scattered the wild game, and therefore Atem's line of non-human blood.

By the time he rounded up to the end of his story, they had delivered eight more packages, had lunch (or rather, Yugi had lunch and medicine and Atem made sure she did so), and Yugi had ended up being carried on his back, due to exhaustion and light-headedness. Dredging up the past had given him something to distract himself from the feel of her arms next to his neck and her soft cheek in his hair.

His last customer was the one to tell him that Yugi had fallen asleep. Atem had an awkward time accepting the money and wriggling it into his pants pocket.

"I hope you don't have any more to do today," said the older man, who looked up at the darkening sky pointedly.

"Everything else can be mailed," said Atem, adjusting her weight on his back. "You don't happen to have any baking cocoa on you, per chance?"

"Not sure how you're going to carry it like that, but yeah. Just give me a moment."

Atem put the baking cocoa in his now empty basket, thanked the man, and headed off to the bus stop. She didn't even stir as he sat down, tickling the edge of his ear with her sleepy sighs.

It was then, sitting in the little bus stop booth, watching the cars hush by and listening to the sound of kids playing a game in the park a block over that he realized something both wondrous and heart-rendingly awful.

He didn't want this day to end.

 **Author's Note: Yo! What are you guys thinking? I've hardly heard anything. Is it alright or is it awful? I'm good with either or. Hearing thoughts in general delight me. They let me know if I'm doing something wrong or right or weird or boring or whatever.**

 **Please send a thought/review my way. :**


	11. A Love for Loyalty

Chapter 10

For the second time, Seto found himself facing down an overly exuberant, lanky blond girl with a lack of filter between her brain and the world.

"I found him!" she crowed. "He wasn't home at the time, but I asked just about everyone I could in that apartment building and his description matches this perfectly!"

She stood in front of him as though ready to be awarded a golden medal of honor before the world; all bright brown eyes, broad triumphant smirk, and mussy gold locks curling at the base of her throat. The red setting sun from the nearest window painted her in amber and summer.

Seto found himself momentarily speechless. His mind had seized.

When he didn't react quick enough for her, the girl whipped her head down to shoulder level, as though that would be enough to talk down to him.

"Oy, I said I found your vamp. Can we go kill him and rescue my friend already?"

He managed to shake himself out of…whatever that was. "You're staying here."

"No I ain't! I'm coming this time. You think I'm going to trust your ass with my adorable little Yugi? Nu uh, hands down no way."

She wasn't being direct. But her voice, that brazen, naked voice of hers, told him she couldn't handle a night alone in his mansion anymore. She had to go, had to do something, and would keep going until she collapsed.

For some reason, perhaps it was the lighting once more, her stubbornness and vicious will he had come to hate so much suddenly seemed like devotion and passionate loyalty.

"These are monsters we're talking about," he heard himself saying. "They have super human strength and speed and a thirst for your blood. You won't be able to fight back."

And, just like with her voice, her face showed everything. Fear. Disgust at herself. Fierce determination.

"You don't let me come, I'll…I'll…"

He closed his eyes and smiled. "What will you do?" He found himself eager to hear.

"I'll fry all the eggs in your house and slip them into your sheets!"

And she didn't disappoint. He threw back his head and laughed, and the sound of it startled him back into reality. He hadn't laughed in…when had he last laughed?

What was going on with him? This wasn't the time for that. What was this feeling?

Collecting himself, he turned from her, cursing the stupid setting sunlight and her stupid energy.

"If you want to kill yourself, be my guest. Best make yourself useful though and learn how to shoot a gun."

Look at him. Employing his second child in the art of vampire killing. He might as well call himself Kaiba the Vampire Slayer. He even had a rather rad pair of leather pants somewhere in the abyss of his closet. It had been a joke buy from his brother a Halloween back or so. Would shish kabob work for stakes?

"Woot! Let's go kill some _people!_ "

He flinched and nearly turned back around. But feeling another laugh crawl up his chest, he purposely kept moving until he was far, far away from her.

Josephine. That had been her name. Josephine Wheeler.

...Freak.

 **Author's Note: Thank you for all the reviews! They were wonderous! In thanks I'll be updating as many chapters as I can until Halloween. After that, it will be back to the same ol' one update a week deal. Wait, wasn't that what I was already doing? Crap, then, what can I do as thanks? Anyone got any ideas?**


	12. Community Vampire

**Happy Halloween!**

Chapter 11

Yugi woke up once more with Atem curled into her side, suckling on a finger. It didn't really hurt, so she was lost as to why she had woken up in the pitch black until she heard the heavy knocking on the front door.

"Atem, someone's at the door."

He didn't respond. Just ran his tongue over her fingertip in his mouth. She shivered.

The pounding got more insistent.

She shook his shoulder. "Atem."

Out came the finger. "Mmrmph?"

Another heavy knock and Atem shot up, incoherent and flustered.

"Wha-what? Coming! Coming! Shit, where's my shirt?"

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know. At least the knocking had stopped. She blearily curled deeper into the beanbag, still feeling the heavy exhaustion from the day before. Who would call in the middle of the night?

Light from his front porchlight stung her half open eyes as he cracked open the door.

A child's voice broke across the gloom.

"Atem! Mom's not breathing! I can't get her to breathe!"

Instantly she was wide awake. So was Atem, who had jumped from the door and into the kitchen faster than humanly possible.

"Go put a glass under your mom's neck, Kimmy, so her mouth is kept open up towards the ceiling."

"O-okay, okay."

Yugi sat up, wondering momentarily why Atem hadn't turned on a light yet. He was making enough racket in the kitchen to warrant it. She clawed her way out of the beanbag.

"What can I do?" she asked.

"Do you remember where we took my first delivery?"

"I think."

"Good, go there and help Kimmy and keep an eye on the baby. If you get a chance, start boiling some water."

The grated metal of the steps bit into the soles of her feet as she flew down two stories. The door with the happy Fourth of July wreathe was open, and light spilled out of it. She could hear the little girl's sniffling from within before she'd stepped through.

It was the exact layout of Atem's apartment—a studio, with a kitchen to the right separated from the rest of the apartment by a counter and a door to the back leading to a small bathroom. The differences were a full-size mattress in the corner and a much larger entertainment center that was overstuffed with books, toys, memorabilia, and the medium sized glass-tube TV. Pictures of two children and posters of children's shows covered the walls. The apartment looked lived in, but not messy, and a high chair was stuffed into one corner.

And sprawled out on her side on the floor, with her tearful daughter trying to push a plastic cup under her neck while turning her head at the same time, was the young mother, unconscious.

Yugi rushed to her side to pull the woman onto her back, and the cup slid easily beneath her. Her skin had gone pale, and her mouth opened to the ceiling in a poor rendition of a hungry baby bird.

"Where's your baby brother?" Yugi asked.

Kimmy pointed towards the bed, where Yugi glimpsed a young toddler fast asleep on his side, oblivious to the emergency at hand. Yugi checked on the baby to make sure he was alright before coming back around to try and calm Kimmy, who had started to rock.

Atem darted through the door not a second later, still with that inhuman speed, startling the little girl into a hiccup. Without a word, Atem's fingers blurred around her neck, face, and her chest. Yugi couldn't help but gape. It took her a minute to notice the basket he had used for his deliveries that day sitting next to him, full of various jars, bottles, bags, rags, and a slim, black case.

"Was it your medicine?" Yugi asked, reaching out to hold Kimmy close. Kimmy hid her face in her shoulder.

"No," he said, breathlessly. "It's so mild, I can't see how…"

He pulled up a ziplock bag. It was empty, save for a fine white powder.

He sniffed the inside, than swore so loudly Kimmy jumped a foot in the air and started to sob in earnest.

"I don't have anything for this," he said, pulling out the black case. "Yugi, do you know CPR?"

"No," she said, hating the word.

He swore again, expression taut with stress.

"Is Mom dying?" Kimmy asked.

He didn't say anything, but pulled out a long, skinny, clear tube from his case. He proceeded to run it down her throat, so quickly that by the time Yugi realized what he was doing, it was already down and attached to a plastic, bellow like hand pump at one end.

"Put your hand over her mouth and nose around the tube and pump this," he said, handing it to her. "Squeeze, three, than release her mouth and nose, three, then squeeze again. Got that?"

She nodded, put her hand down over her face and took it, squeezing the pump, then counting to three before releasing lifting her hands.

Like that he was gone again, the old metal staircase thundering with his footsteps.

When he came back down again, he not only had a large bottle of some light blue substance, but a plastic case of syringes. He fell besides the woman, snapped a needle in place of the syringe, and popped off the lid.

"What is that?" Yugi asked.

"The most intense detoxing drug I have." He stuck the needle in the liquid, sucking it up into the syringe. "She's suffering a meth overdose. This should get the drug out of her system, but it won't be pretty."

Rather than sticking it in her arm like Yugi had people get their shots, Atem pulled down her shirt and stuck it in right above her heart, then pushed down the stopper.

"Keep pumping, Yugi."

She quickly squeezed down, doing her best not to rush her count to three.

Then he pulled out the cup from under her neck, took the breathing tube out, and turned her onto her side.

"Take Kimmy upstairs," he said.

"No!" Kimmy shrieked. "I have to stay with Mommy!"

"You're not going to want to see this."

Yugi wrapped her arms around the little girl's waist, but instantly got fought against.

Just as she managed to drag the girl, kicking and screaming, to the door (her baby brother had woken up as well with a screech), their mother started to move in jerking, rolling waves. Vomit came pooling out of her mouth, and a sickening, rich smell of feces pooled in with the sick.

"Get her out!" Atem shouted.

Yugi took advantage of Kimmy's momentary shock of seeing so much sick to haul her the rest of the way upstairs. A head had poked out of a door a story below Atem's apartment. Just as she panted up the last steps, head spinning with black dots, she made it to Atem's door, which had been left open. Kimmy only started to revive once she felt Atem's shag rug beneath her, and then it was only to sniffle and weep.

Only a minute later, Atem dashed back up the stairs with the baby, which he handed off to Yugi without a word and vanished with that ultra speed of his back downstairs. The baby calmed easily enough after she rewrapped him in his baby blanket and started bouncing him.

"Mommy did something bad," Kimmy croaked through her little brothers whimpers. "Didn't she?"

"What makes you say that?"

"She waited until she thought I was asleep, like she always does. Then she takes that white pill stuff and leaves. She only fell down after she took the white stuff."

Yugi wondered if her heart would stop beating if her chest constricted any tighter.

"Yes," said Yugi carefully. "She took the bad kind of drugs. The kind you get addicted to because they make you feel falsely happy."

Kimmy jerked her big, watery eyes to Yugi. "Mom was sad?"

"No, not like that. They're bad drugs. The kind they teach you to say no to in school, like smoking and crack and stuff."

The dark look that came over Kimmy's face as she looked back to the carpet told Yugi the little six year old knew far too much about that then Yugi wanted to know.

She managed to get Netflix going on Atem's TV for her, at least. Kimmy half heartedly asked for My Little Pony, so Yugi bundled her up in the thick, fuzzy blanket on the beanbag and eased the little baby back to sleep. She had never thought she had a thing with babies. Maybe it was because jerkwad elementary kids always thought they could pick on her because of her height.

When she heard the door creak behind her, she turned expecting to see Atem. Instead she saw someone else. Someone tall and completely swathed in black from head to toe. Even his eyes were shrouded in darkness.

"Yugi Motou?" he asked.

Kimmy, who had been on the edge of sleep, noticed the tall stranger with a tiny squeak.

A strange coolness washed over her, and Yugi settled the sleeping infant in the beanbag next to his sister and stood, feeling braver than she was.

"Who's asking?"

"Acquaintance of a friend." He reached out a hand. "Be quick. I don't know how long his smell will be overcome by that woman's sickness."

Yugi drew a step back. There was a heaviness to the aura he gave off that intimidated her. It didn't feel right.

"I have to watch the kids," she said.

The man let out an explosive sigh from his nostrils. "You're as crazy as her."

Then she blinked and he was in front of her. Kimmy let out a shriek as his fist met the back of Yugi's head.

And all went black.


	13. Before You Can Blink

**And because it's Halloween night and you need something to read while you eat candy-unless you're from one of those countries that don't do Halloween...**

Chapter 12

Some kind of commotion with some crying kids was going on when Joey and Seto reached the apartment. Since Mokuba had to park the helicopter where, well, it wouldn't attract a vampire's attention they'd had to walk quite a bit before reaching it. Seto had planned on leaving her in the helicopter, but like hell she would listen to his smartass Dracula face. And since he was more intent on catching his prey than keeping her safe, he just said 'whatever' and jumped out. Now that she was looking at the apartment building she had worn her feet all over for, the thought that Yugi was in there brought new energy back to her with a zing like three Monster energy drinks at once—not that she had ever done that. Nor should anyone. That could kill a person. Totally.

As she tiptoed to Seto's side, the crying of the kids were muffled, either by a door or by someone finding the key to solving it all. She thought she spotted someone running down the stairs, then a door on the third floor opening and closing.

"Should we wait?" she whispered, trying to be super ninja-like, but Kaiba just shoved her head into an alleyway and gave her a glare that said 'Move and I kill you.' She swung a fist towards his face, but he was gone and heading up the stairs before it had gone half-way.

"Freaking vampire and his stupid, freaking super speed," she growled under her breath. Then she hesitated, glancing at the door that had just closed. The young mom there had been especially helpful in finding Atem, and her eyes had shone as she talked about him and his ability to make the most amazing medicines. An uncomfortable wriggling in her chest came as Joey wondered if she should have told Kaiba about that little bit of information. It didn't seem to matter much at the time. A vampire who made medicine was still a vampire.

Even though she wanted to follow Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Armed, she wasn't stupid about her own capabilities. For all she knew, vampires had super hearing and her stomping up the stairs after Seto would ruin it all. Then not only might she never see Yugi again, but Seto might have her for lunch.

Oh yeah. She hadn't forgotten about that little possibility. No matter the amount of bravado and smash talk she threw at the guy, it was only to cover up the fact that she remembered the feeling of his fangs on her neck, or more importantly, the scarlet gleam to his eyes as he had yanked her down to them.

She had been meat. No. A perfectly grilled fillet mignon in the hands of man who had spent a month living on salads.

She shuddered and ducked back into the alley, which was too much like the one that had started it all. Graffiti spilled across one wall, spelling the name of some gang she couldn't quite decipher, as another gang had tried to cover it up with their own poor art. Leaves had gathered in the corners and collected smog and trash. Trash cans made black shapes in the darkness further down.

Joey wrapped her arms about herself. The black hoodie Mokuba had stuffed over her head was a size or so too small, and thin to boot. Summer was ending, and tonight had to be the first night of the season to get a nip of Autumn chill.

In the quiet, her mind turned to thoughts she had valiantly done her best to avoid. Like, what if Yugi was dead?

She shuddered and squeezed her arms till her knuckles popped. Before Yugi she had been a crazy girl pretending to be a boy in a gang, living for the next fight and on a collision course with suicide. Her old man was barely a blip on the map of her life, as he worked, drank, and flailed in drunken rage. Her mom? Her mom was somewhere far away with her sister, forgetful of Joey's existence.

Yugi…Yugi had changed all that. She'd come into her life like a burst of sunlight. In Yugi, Joey caught sight of all the good things in life she had lost faith in long ago. In Yugi she had a friend and sister and safe place in one. With Yugi, she stopped being a burden or an annoying kid and became an ordinary high school girl who played video games and talked about boys and, well, whatever.

There would be no Joey if there was no Yugi.

Joey was well aware of the fact that having her existence hinged on someone else's was stupid and weak. But that's just how it was, and there was nothing else to it.

Shaking herself, she pushed off from the wall and peered around the corner. She thought she caught sight of movement on the stairs again.

 _Jeeze, what's taking that bloodsucker so long?_

She scowled, squinting at the dark shape near the top. The door opened, spreading light onto a figure with wild hair and lean stance. It looked a little short—

Something large landed behind her. She spun, fists up, scream caught in her throat—

Seto Kaiba was straightening, eyes agleam and little more than a smudge of darkness against the wall in all his black getup.

"…Damn stupid vamp, did you have to freak me out?" she hissed, before all her attention was sucked in to the pale form in his arms. Completely ignoring the fact that he was fanged and did not like her presence, Joey threw herself at the girl, all but tearing her out from Seto's arms.

Yugi's paleness practically made her glow in the darkness. Her long hair was unkempt and smelled strongly of lemon, and she was dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants that were too big for her. She was also unconscious.

"What did you do to her?" Joey snarled, hugging Yugi to her.

"She wasn't coming, so I tapped her out."

Every hair on her body rose with fizzled alarm. "You _what?"_

"Shut up!" Seto hissed, his bright eyes enough to cut Joey off short. "She's just unconscious, if your idiot brain had bothered to check her pulse or breathing you would know that."

Joey had already noticed the gentle rise of Yugi's chest against her own. Heat blossomed to her cheeks, though she was too caught up in relief to be embarrassed.

"Mokuba's called a cab," Seto continued. "Head down the street to the next bus stop."

"Thanks. And sorry."

Seto folded his arms, still scowling at her. "Just get out of my life already."

Joey had just managed to shift Yugi around to her back when Seto suddenly stiffened. He jerked towards her.

And in that same moment, a solid, dark weight slammed into him. It threw him out of the alley, over the sidewalk, and smack dab into the middle of the empty street. Even as Joey looked on, huge, demonic-like wings shot out from the back of the man atop Seto. His eyes blazed a brilliant red that outlined the gleam of his bared fangs and wild fury.

Seto, with nearly twice as much mass as his foe, kicked him off. The wings flapped, a swirl of color and limbs, and a loud crash of body and bones right next to Joey made her jump and scream as Seto flopped off the brick wall. A blink later and Seto was up again, all air-cracking snarls and brilliant blue-violet eyes.

Joey only had long enough to register that they were under attack from the vampire who had had Yugi when said vampire appeared before Seto in a blur. She stumbled back. The wild-haired winged demon had Seto by the throat against the building. The way his lips had stretched back from his teeth and his too-wide stretched eyes gave him an inhuman, monstrous look of fury, and her heart seized for Seto, who looked painfully human next to the other.

The lights of a car came around the corner, throwing surreal relief against the claws digging into Seto's throat.

Then the other monster's free hand shot forward like a spear into Seto's chest with a horrible snap of ribs. Seto's eyes shot wide, mouth gaping open like a fish.

The hand tore back out, holding in its fingers a thumping, flesh-like _thing._

Joey's knees cracked together. Her mouth had gone dry. Her heart hammered faster than a hummingbird's. Yugi's weight on her back only added to her alarm. _._

The car came closer, headlights gleaming on the bath of blood down the shorter vampire's arm and on the dark bulge of the heart.

 _Please let them notice. Please let them call someone. Someone. Anyone._

Just as the car neared, though, the vampire's wings shrunk away, as though in a vacuum, and he flung away Seto's much taller body as though it were a doll into the darkness of the alley.

For a moment, the scene was blinded by the car's headlights. Then it passed without hesitation, nothing to show but its red, rear lights.

And in the orange streetlights, Joey stared back into the murderous red gaze of Seto's murderer. His snarl had fallen away, bringing some semblance of humanity back to his face, but large fangs still stuck out past his bottom lip.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said in a surprisingly low, smooth voice. "Just give her back to me."

Joey reflexively clutched to Yugi. She couldn't run. The only reason she was still upright at all was because her knees had knocked into each other and now propped one another up.

Blood dripped off his hand where it splashed onto the ground. It caked his front, speckled his face and dripped down his neck. Even as she looked on a dark tongue darted out and licked some off the side of his mouth.

"Please," the mouth said. "Don't make me take her by force."

Give Yugi back to this? Joey would sooner die. And she probably would.

Digging deep into that dark part of her that had been born from the filth and violence of the streets, Joey filled herself with the cool and painted her trembling limbs with steel.

"She was mine first," she said.

The vampire made a small frown, his red eyes searching her face. "Are you that friend of hers I met that one night while you were getting milkshakes? The one that ran away screaming?"

Joey lowered her chin. "Yeah. 'Cept I'm not running this time. Like hell I'll let something like you have my best friend. You'll have to kill me first."

The frown deepened as he jerked his head in the direction of Seto's body. "You should be more worried about that one. Young vampires are unpredictable and bloodthirsty at best."

"Ho, and you aren't?" her throat was getting tight. She didn't know how long she could hold this out.

"Oh, I am. But I have 300 years to temper it." He hesitated, glancing down at his blood splattered self. "Look, I know this is scary, but I swear to you I'll return her to you good as new in just a week. I just need her help with something."

Joey took a few steps back. "No."

And like that, the vampire's niceness vanished and his expression darkened. Once more she saw the gleam of the monster past the human façade.

He dropped the lump of thumping flesh in his right hand.

"I'm afraid I'm done asking."

Just like that, his hand was around her throat, cutting off her squawk of alarm. It jerked her down, reaching behind for the smaller girl on her back.

"Joe…?"

The vampire went still as stone.

Yugi shifted a bit on Joey's back. She let out a little moan of pain.

"Ow, my head." It became something like a whimper. "Joe? What are you—"

Just as quick, he was gone, and Joey collapsed onto the pavement gasping for air. Yugi flopped off with a cry of alarm.

"Joey! Oh my gosh, are you okay? Why is there blood around your—ATEM!"

It was a ground rumbling roar that Joey had never heard from her tiny friend before. The shock alone nearly ruined any attempts she had at catching her breath.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yugi's bare feet, nearly swallowed up in gray sweats, take a stance besides her. Her righteous fury was palpable.

"What did you do to my best friend?!"

The meek, low voice from the vampire surprised Joey just as much.

"Yugi, I swear I didn't hurt her. The blood is from another vampire she was with, one that had kidnapped you—all this blood on me is from—"

"She by hell doesn't look alright." And then the fury was giving way to tears, angry or otherwise, but Yugi didn't blubber. "Don't you think you're doing enough damage without hurting her? Suck my blood, hurt me as much as you want, but please, by God, don't hurt my friends!"

A low snarl broke through her thick words. Joey snapped her head up, staring into the darkness of the alley where the supposedly dead body was starting to rise.

The fierce shriek that bubbled up to Joey's throat came out as a squeak.

The other vampire sighed. "Of course." He started into the alleyway, braided muscles in the tears of his shirt coiling up for attack.

And before Joey could think better of it, she was on her feet again, stumbling past her Yugi shield towards him.

"Stop!"

He didn't stop, but glanced back at her as he stomped a foot down on the now writhing body.

"What?" he didn't sound too happy. Not at all.

"How is he—" He's undead, idiot, not important. "Don't kill him."

The other vampire scoffed even as he kicked down at the other's head. "If I let him go now he'll kill you, and if not you, the first three people he meets. He won't be able to help it. His human mind is eaten up by the monster in him." Another kick. A crunch. A short, intense animal-like squeal of pain.

"But he's managed to not hurt anyone so far," said Joey, thinking of Mokuba. "And he has a kid brother that will have no one if you kill him."

The vampire paused and looked back at her again. "How old is he?"

"Nine? Ten at most?"

For a long moment, the red eyes jumped about her, considering.

But it was Yugi who spoke up next.

"Is he so much different from you? He tried to kill you, but you kill vampires too."

"It isn't that he tried to kill me," the vampire grumbled, then sighed. "Fine. Idiot's got some potential if he can still squirm after what I did to him anyways." He reached down, messing around Seto's collar.

Yugi and Joey exchanged glances and edged closer to one another till their arms touched.

The vampire must have found whatever it was he had been looking for, as he lifted it up to his mouth and said, "Mokuba, whoever you are, best you come in with some of that blood supply you keep on hand. Your comrade's down."

A speaker crackled. " _What the hell have you done to him?"_

"What he would have done to me if he could," he said dryly. "Now hurry. Either he gets blood now or I finish snapping his neck."

He tossed down the mouth piece. Then he spun on his heel and flopped down butt first onto Seto's chest like a miffed puppy.

"He'll kill you one day," he said to Joey, his serious tone only adding to the petulant child image he had made.

Joey meant to say something snappy along the lines of 'well I won't be around to be killed, because I'm taking my friend and blowing this joint. Smell ya later.' But, of course, things never worked out for Joey like she wanted them to, her dignity being one of them. She barely managed a smart aleck smirk before the world went black and her knees finally gave way.

 **And to the guest reviewer who says they're frustrated that it's not finished: I totally understand. You have my word that I am working as fast as I can. Please take this new chapter as my sacrificial offering. Blood included.**


	14. The Willing Victim

**Got a friend who is writing a story I actually quite enjoy. She's an excellent storyteller and working on her Masters in writing. Name's jilnauchtaugen and she's actually left a review on this story. I told her for every chapter update on her story, I'd give her an update of mine. A bit of friendly competition. So, if you'd like to cheer on the effort and get some free chapters for "Blood Chain" before the usual Monday update, check out her Yugioh story, "One in a Millennium" and, I don't know, encourage her? Though with how impatient I am with unfinished stories, I'd say shamelessly egg her on to get those chapters out, but I'm not a demon.**

 **Or am I? Nar nar nar nar.**

Chapter 13

You'd think after 300 years Atem would have seen just about everything. Nothing should have surprised him, besides Yugi, that is.

But when a little kid stuck his head out of the helicopter door, he had to stare. The 'I will cut you' look on the kid's face when he saw his brother's bloody body in his arm didn't even phase him, though. He'd seen his share of child soldiers in his day. He fully expected a knife in his back the moment the kid had the chance.

"You're flying this?" he asked above the roar of the helicopter blades, flummoxed.

"Put him in," snarled the boy with narrowed eyes.

The moment he did the kid was there, pushing a plastic bag with a bead of blood poking over the top. The unconscious vampire curled about it like an infant. After pushing one more bag in, the kid turned back to him, teeth bared, and in that moment Atem knew.

This kid was a vampire too.

He cursed.

"Get in," barked the kid.

Atem put his bloodied hands into his pockets and raised an eyebrow. But the kid lost patience with him and took hold of his shirt and hauled him in with much more strength than a kid should ever be allowed. He let him. There wasn't any reason why he shouldn't. After all, he had already made his decision concerning this rich little bastard.

"Yugi," he turned to reach for the young girl bowed beneath the weight of her friend. She had taken Joey on so that Atem could have both his hands for maneuvering the much larger vampire down.

He expected her large expressive eyes to widen and for her to step away. She had no reason to follow after him in the first place, even if he did have her unconscious best friend on one hip and a dying vampire on the other. He expected her to be done with him, to take advantage of his preoccupation to escape him.

What he didn't expect was for her to take his hand and give him a reassuring smile.

"Help me with Joey," she said.

Three hundred years of experience was nothing, he decided.

Atem jumped to assist before Yugi could think otherwise. He still shook from the intensity of the emotion that had run through him when he had smelled vampire beneath all the cleaner and come up to find her kidnapped. He still couldn't justify the overwhelming horror with that of a man who just wanted to keep hold of the key to killing an especially dangerous, old vampire.

And then when that stick of a girl, Joey, had told him no with such passion in her eyes as her body reeked with the scent of fear and that roll of murder went through his heart—

Yugi's warm hand clasped his. He pulled her into the helicopter and shut the door. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the child vampire up front at the wheel, wearing a set of headphones that looked too large for his head. Already he was making plans of what to do should the kid prove to be a flop at flying. But even as he thought this, the helicopter eased off the earth so gently that he hardly noticed they had left at all.

"Atem, your hand."

He had yet to let go of Yugi's hand, and it was with the one he had yanked out a vampire's heart. He released her hastily and took a spot near the other vampire's head, intent on keeping vigilance should the other go through his blood baggies and went sniffing for more.

Atem tried not to be too obvious with how he watched her, still wearing his clothes as she rub her wrist a bit and curl up next to her friend. He had to stop, though, as her shivering was beginning to make him uncomfortable. The urge to wrap himself about her and rub out every bit of cold was mind numbing.

"Aren't there any blankets in here?" he asked above the noise of the blades, but he might have not even tried as Mokuba didn't even flinch. He scoured around for more headphones and found a pair hung up in a corner above the familiar cooler of blood. He couldn't help but think how strange it was to be back here.

He pulled on the headphones and brought the mouthpiece around. "So, you wanted me along why?"

"Why do you think?" came the irritated response. "You know more about how Seto's body works than me."

Atem couldn't help but snort. "Vampire bodies are pretty self-suffient in that regard. Give him as much blood as he wants and he'll be fine."

"I also want you to teach us how to kill vampires. Everything we've tried out doesn't seem to work, even the stupid stake through the heart."

"Do I want to know how you two tried that one out?"

"What do you think? Seto staked himself. If you're thinking he experiments on his little brother you can screw yourself. Seto would never do something like that. In fact, he's worked himself to the bone trying to figure out how to cure us."

That didn't amuse Atem. A hope for a cure was nothing but a painful dream. He had found that out the hard way.

But he didn't feel like throwing that on the kid after seeing his brother with a gaping hole in his chest. The kid did look awfully young, in vampiric terms, even younger than the idiot he was now digging out another bloodbag for. An unpleasant thought occurred to him.

"Your brother was the one who changed you, huh?"

The cry through the speakers made him wince. "He didn't mean to! He didn't even know what he was doing when it happened! You should know, since you're the bloodsucker who turned him in the first place."

Atem let out a heavy sigh. He wasn't going to go there. It wouldn't matter that he had found the club Seto had mentioned on the complete other side of the city from where he had been that same night, sipping one of his new experimental Colas in an attempt to find a blood alternative.

On the other side of the helicopter, the lanky Joey began to stir. She sat up with Yugi's help, and on seeing the other, engulfed her in an embrace. Then, probably noticing that Yugi was shivering and turning blue, took off her hoodie and proceeded to mash it over Yugi's protesting head.

When the helicopter finally began its decent sometime later, the young vampire curled up next to Atem had yet to stir, and he still had blood bags stuck to his face. A thought flashed in his head to take a picture of this in case the noob thought he could pull his arrogant act on him. Problem was, he didn't have a cell phone and he had busted Yugi's. Turns out Joey didn't have one either. Too poor, she'd said.

The blades hadn't even stopped pushing out wind when Mokuba was around and tugging at Seto's feet.

"Help me get him to a bed," he told Atem, even while he gave him his 'I'll cut you' face.

"You're going to want him in a tub," said Atem.

"Excuse me?"

"First vamp lesson," Atem lifted the blood shoulders to his chest. This bastard was going to owe him new shirts. "Vampirism commandeers the digestive system," he dropped off of the helicopter, half his attention to Yugi's bare feet on the cement landing pad as she dropped off as well, "adapting it to absorb blood like a second cardiovascular system rather than breaking down food to get to the nutrients. Because of this, vampire's technically have two cardiovascular systems, and therefore that much more blood. And I don't know if you've noticed yet, but vampire's also don't clot. They bleed until the wound is healed."

"Point?" Mokuba asked impatiently.

"You put him on a bed you'll be out a bed. Put him in a tub and he won't even notice. He can even shower off all the gunk first thing when he wakes up. And growing back a heart, there's going to be a hellava lot of it."

Mokuba flinched, almost dropping his brother's lanky legs. "He doesn't ha— _you tore out his heart?!"_

"Not enough of it, apparently." Atem looked down distastefully. "Did you know your brother's heart is actually more on the left side of his chest? Rare, that is."

He felt a nudge in his side. Yugi had caught up to him, and was looking at Seto's bloody torso a bit woozily.

"Stop," she said.

Atem sighed and kept his peace all the way up to the bathroom. At the door of Seto's bedroom, Joey pulled Yugi off somewhere and he found himself impatient to get the blood sucking corpse down so he could follow after her. At least he tried to be gentle on dropping him in for the kid's sake. Really, he wasn't entirely sure where all this negativity towards the kid was coming from. Perhaps it was the overflow from the bitterness he felt towards Seto for trying to steal Yugi, among other things.

"You're just going to leave him?" asked Mokuba, all four feet shaking with pale indignation.

Atem looked over his shoulder from his place in the bathroom doorway. "There's nothing left to do but keep throwing blood bags in. I trust you can do that."

"While you what? Go gnaw on Joey as well? I don't think so!"

Atem sighed. "I'm not going to 'gnaw' on anyone. Look, I'm sorry for putting you in a bad spot, kid, but the point is I kill vampires like you and your brother to protect people. If your brother hadn't shot me, Yugi and Joey wouldn't even be here."

"We wouldn't be here at all if you hadn't bit him in the first place!" Mokuba practically screeched.

"Look, I wasn't even in that part of the city that night. I was at home and in my right mind."

"Ha! Yeah right!"

Atem rolled his eyes. Fine, if this kid wasn't going to believe him, he was just going to leave.

When Mokuba tried to come out after him, a poorly backed up threat on his tongue, Atem swung around and had the kid beneath his foot before the squirt even had time to blink.

"Watch your brother. If he gets up before he's fully healed he'll be the one going after the girls. You need to keep him supplied with blood, got that? And if I wanted to drink anyone dry I would have already."

He lifted his foot, ignoring the now trademark 'I will cut you' glare, and set his nose on the trail of sugary cream and lavender.

He found the two in the kitchen, but wasn't there for long before Yugi pointed him in the other direction, giving a pointed look at his bloodied arm and wet dark shirt. Reluctantly, he found the nearest shower, popped in and out, shoved his pants back on (black, so you didn't really notice the blood splatters), and sniffed back to her side. She and Joey were sitting on stools, talking in hush tones.

"You should eat something," he said. "You fell asleep before you could have dinner. Does tomato soup with spinach sound appealing?"

The lanky blond girl goggled at him, but Yugi gave him a small smile.

"I can cook for myself," she said.

"Yeah, but—don't make me explain myself. Does it sound good or not? I'm sure this guy has something tomato and spinach in here." He was already opening up the first cupboards. "If not, I'm sure I can find something else that helps with blood production. Spinach is just the best." Damn it, he should have brought some of his supplies along. Not that he could have with his arms full of teenage girl and mostly dead vampire. Maybe he could pop in sometime in the morning. Speaking of which, what time was it? Would she have time to eat whatever he made her and get to bed before the sun rose? Humans always got the best sleep in the morning hours before dawn.

"You're right. He is weird."

He turned around, a can of Campbell's in hand. "What was that?"

Joey flinched and squirm, but seemed to quickly get a hold of herself as she lowered her head to her shoulders, like a bull readying to charge, and gave him the most comically forced threat-face. "I was calling you weird. You have a problem with that?"

"No. Do you want some soup too?"

The girl blinked, returning back to gawking. Yugi patted her arm, a sympathetic smile on her lips.

"She'd love some. Joey has a stomach like a black hole."

Joey flinched again. "Don't tell him that!"

"A healthy appetite is common in adolescence," he said, opening the fridge and wrinkling his nose at the contents. "Nothing to be ashamed of."

"You are so disconnected, dude."

Oh, if only she knew.

He found his spinach in the first drawer he opened and sniffed it cautiously. It wasn't as fresh as he liked it, but it would do. He pulled out a jug milk as well, already having affirmed that Yugi wasn't lactose intolerant.

Eventually, the two girls' conversation picked up again, despite his presence, and he got to enjoy listening to their worries about homework and school while he prepped the soup. When it had warmed up and he begun stripping the spinach, however, it had turned to something less enjoyable to hear.

"Thanks for calling my mom with an excuse," said Yugi.

"Yeah, well it's disgusting that Dad hasn't even noticed I'm missing yet," said Joey sourly.

"Isn't that a good thing? If police got involved with the vampires—"

"Heck, let them. Btw, your mom said not to be out too long." Joey then made a nasty, snide noise. "It's been two days, and that's all she has to say? Don't be out too long."

"I'd rather not talk about this."

Heart twinging a bit at the sound in Yugi's voice, Atem wondered if he should hunt down some chocolate too as he slid the bowls across the counter to them. They thanked him, Joey with another suspicious stare.

"Maybe she just trusts you," said Atem offhandedly.

"There's trust, then there's neglect," said Joey while brandishing her spoon. "That being said, I ain't one to talk. My folks are the poster children for bad parenting."

Yugi said nothing, her attention to the soup.

Atem felt another painful twinge and shoved down a memory that had attempted to escape the heavy lock and key he'd placed it under.

No need to visit that particular piece of the past.


	15. The Beginning of Compliance

**Because jilnauchtaugen has updated her story, here is an update to the story of her choosing as promised. :} If she can get an update in before Monday, I will put up another update.**

 **The pressure is on, like a steam cooker on some defenseless beans!**

Chapter 14

Yugi was exhausted. She had spotted a gray glow through the vast windows of the Kaiba mansion kitchen and had realized she had been up most of the night walking after vampire victims of a Saw movie, not to mention high wired for craziness.

But now that she had Joey at her side and a full belly of hot soup, it took everything she had just follow after Joey, who promised a soft bed. At the foot of the stairs she received a surprised when Atem scooped her up in his arms. It was just a sign of how tired she was that she allowed him to carry her the rest of the way, feeling Joey's glares all the way. She was already most of the way to dreamland when she felt him lower her onto something heavenly soft and not people eating like his bean bag.

When Joey let out a shout of protest, she woke with a start to find that the body she had assumed was Joey's curling up next to her wasn't Joey, but Atem.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Joey squawked.

Atem gave her a narrow, unamused glare. In his defense, he had settled above the covers and had yet to throw one of his limbs over her like he had the past two nights. "Keeping you two safe from the injured vampire in the house, or have you forgotten?"

"Then go sleep in the hall!"

"No." He said flatly, and laid his head down on the pillow besides Yugi.

Joey stomped about with her cheeks aflame, just to be stopped by Atem's outstretched hand.

"Look," he said, "you don't have to worry about me trying anything. Vampires don't have a sex drive, for one, and two I'm beyond exhausted. If I was going to kill Yugi I would have done it two nights ago, so just get into bed."

Joey half choked, half yelled, "No sex drive my ass!"

He let out a short, impatient sigh. "Do you seriously need me to prove it? Besides, even if I did have one, do you really think I'd try anything with you in the bed? You'd tear off my balls before anything happened."

Now Joey's face was red for a whole other reason. She flailed her hands about for a bit before looking at Yugi desperately.

And since Yugi was exhausted as well as wary of the vampire in the house she did not know, she just patted the blankets on the other side of her. The bed was huge, after all.

With a little whine, Joey came back around, dug herself under the covers, and pointedly tugged Yugi over to her side. The vampire gave an annoyed, one eyed glare before closing it and turning his face to the pillow.

Yugi drowsily patted Joey's head. "Everything will be okay, Joe."

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled, tucking her face into Yugi's thick mane of hair.

A yawn later and she was gone. She dreamed haphazard dreams of Atem, her mother, and the mysterious Seto Kaiba, who towered over her like a dark castle, ready to swallow her whole. Besides the momentary pinprick of pain from one of her fingers, her sleep was otherwise uneventful and peaceful.

A sharp jerk of her finger, followed by freezing air, woke her up sometime later. She roused from her sleep in time to hear a door slam open and the unmistakable sound of retching. Alarmed that Joey might be sick, she shot up and was stumbling across the bedroom towards the noises before she had even registered where she was. When had her bedroom gotten so big? And when did it have an attached bathroom?

Still, she pushed into the dark bathroom, holding her breath to avoid the smell of vomit.

"Joey?"

Whoever it was coughed, and in that instant she knew it wasn't Joey.

"Go back to bed," Atem croaked, before another wave of retching hit him.

She sucked in a breath of surprise without thinking and got a lungful of metallic, soured blood smell.

"Are you okay?" she asked, pawing at the wall besides her until she found a light switch. At Atem's painful hiss, she switched it off again and tried to feel her way towards him in the dim light from the bedroom, where sunlight had managed to bleed past the curtains.

In answer, he just groaned and flushed the toilet. Her knee found some part of him and she lowered herself down, feeling out his back and giving it a rub.

"I didn't think vampires could get the stomach flu," she tried to say conversationally. His back felt hard with coiled muscles and yet smooth. It took her a second to realize the softness wasn't his shirt, but his bare skin, as he had done away with his shirt the night before. She should have remembered that, as she had been doing her best to avoid the sight. It did no good to appreciate the well shaped, chiseled pecs and abs of a guy who would suck her dry before seeing her as a romantic possibility—or even be a good idea for one.

"They don't," he grumbled after a minute of slow breathing. "The immune system and healing processes are too hypercharged for that. If we try to eat human food it comes back up, but not…clotted blood?"

"You would know, I can't see," she said, still rubbing, despite the heat starting up in her chest.

"No, that's—Yugi, could you turn on the light?"

She wrinkled her nose and did so, having to stand by the lightswitch in order to brace herself against the wall as an overdue rush of dizziness came and went. When the darkness cleared, Atem was still in front of the toilet and squinting into the blood splattered bowl. The sight of so much red made her stomach twist.

"Those are clots," he said with breathy disbelief.

"Um…" she eased towards the door, super weirded out. "Do vampires usually ogle their own vomit?"

"No, you don't get it. Vampire blood doesn't clot. It's part of how the accelerated healing processes work." He sat back, bits of blood splattered on his face, which was wide-eyed and elated. "This is new. This is definitely different."

Yugi frowned, though, not understanding. "If you didn't clot, wouldn't you just bleed out?"

"Why do you think the blood thirst takes over with bad injuries? It's the body's self-defense mechanism."

"Then how can it, uh, accelerate the healing process?"

"It's key to it." He was talking faster now, still staring into the toilet bowl like it held gold. "The vampiric system is based off of super charging the body with nutrients. By converting the digestive system into a second cardiovascular system, it takes out the majority of the energy needed by the body to digest and process food and waste and sends it directly into absorption and maintenance. Add in the factor that it allows two to three times the volume of blood, which is then condensed into a hyper-saturated—haauuuurrrrgh!"

Atem barely made it to the toilet bowl in time. More blood splattered onto the sides of the bowl.

Deciding she didn't care that much about why vampires didn't clot, she stepped out of the bathroom and back towards the sprawled out, sleeping form of her friend. Joey, after all, slept like the dead. It would take the Hulk puking to wake her up. Only after she had curled up next to her under the warm covers did she notice that one of her fingers was bleeding.

Atem came out not too long later, looking rather worse for wear and wan, but happy. She eyed his blood-dyed lips and hoped he wasn't particularly thirsty. He had just lost a good deal of blood.

He walked over to her side, most casually, flopped back onto his side of the bed, and started reaching through the covers for her.

She seized up, barely stopping a scream from escaping her throat.

But his gentle smile didn't look particularly bloodthirsty. "It's okay, little one. I'm not going to hurt you."

"T-t-then w-what are you—"

He pulled her into his arms, nestling her into the bend of his lap, and hugged her tight.

"Something's changing," he said, quiet and breathlessly. "I just lost so much blood, but I only feel mildly thristy, and there were blood clots. The only thing I can think that's different is your blood, Yugi."

"What do you mean?"

Just then, Joey sat up with a wild yell and only a semblance of focus in the way she flopped her arm to the side.

"Get yer dirty paws off her, Eddy," she slurred.

"Eddy?" he said.

"She means 'Edward,' from Twilight," Yugi said with a smile.

Nonetheless, he let her go and got off the bed. His hand, however, caught onto her hand with the bleeding finger.

"I'm sorry about this, but would you mind if I…?"

Yugi frowned, but seeing the excited, bright expression lighting up his face, suddenly understood.

"Somewhere else," she nudged her shoulder towards the half-awake Joey, who was muttering something about Atem leaving so she could pee in peace all while glaring at him. A weird hot squirm took up residence in her stomach and brought heat up to her cheeks. It was almost like she were escaping her friend to have a make out session with a boy who was little more than a stranger.

He let go of her, since Joey looked ready to start chewing on something, and headed out first. Yugi waited until Joey got up for the bathroom and closed the door behind her before nervously stepping out into the hall.

He had her hand the moment she was out. Slipping her bleeding finger into his mouth, he closed the bedroom door behind her and closed his eyes with a hum. She tried to withhold the shudder as she felt his tongue against her cut.

"So you…you think my blood is curing your vampirism?" She couldn't honestly believe that. It had to be a ploy just to get her to offer her blood to him. But the thing was, he didn't have to wait for her to offer it to him.

"Mmhmm," he hummed about her finger.

He lightly bit down a fang into her cut and a tiny yip of pain escaped her. He only held on for a half second longer before pulling back and giving her an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about that."

But she found herself suddenly blindsighted by him. He had been nice to look at before, but she had never seen him look so…elated. Even as she thought that, she remembered how often his brow had been crumpled with pain, even while he had been delivering medicines to his patients. She remembered how he kept mentioning how he could do without being alive. It was almost as though he still felt…

Something hard flew just past Atem's head and shattered against a wall. His smile vanished. He let go of her hand as though it were on fire and turned on the tall, haggard man wearing a shirt of bloody bandages and equally bloody jeans.

"Get back in the tub, idiot," Atem snapped.

Seto Kaiba glared at him with dark ringed eyes. His skin had gone beyond white to gray, and every part of him trembled.

"Why are you in my house!? Sucking on a child, nonetheless!"

Yugi prickled. "I'm sixteen years old!"

Kaiba ignored her, reaching for the little table against the wall which had held the decorative vase that had shattered behind them.

"Don't—" Atem started, but the table was already up. He pushed Yugi down and threw himself over her, even as she heard the loud bang and crack of the wood meeting wall.

"Get back inside." Atem nudged her towards the door.

"What about—"

"I'll be fine."

"Sure you'll be," came the growl on the other end of the hall.

That made Yugi wonder if vampires really did have super hearing, though something far more pressing took up her thoughts as she slid back into the bedroom and closed the door, finger throbbing. The heavy, icky feeling under her lungs only increased when she saw a very frightened, pale Joey coming for her from the bathroom door.

Why did she feel like she had just done something bad?


	16. Monster of the Subconscience

Chapter 15

Seto knew he was in for the Mama of all Bad Days when he came to burning all over, chest an empty cave of agony, mouth full of fangs, and throat practically caving in on itself from how dry it was. Not only that, but he was in his tub surrounded by empty plastic blood bags.

The line of profanities and curses faded away as he found himself crawling out of the bathtub and something primal and heavy rolling over his mind. His vision blurred. Clenching his teeth hard enough to taste his own blood, he shoved it back. He MADE it go back. Nothing would ever have power over him. He would make sure of that. After all, it was mainly the strength of his will that had gotten him to where he was today.

Still, it hurt bad enough to make it difficult to breathe, let alone see straight. What he did manage to see was a small trickle of blood pouring from the hole in his chest, despite the heavy bandages someone had double wrapped his chest in.

How had that happened again? How had he gotten here?

A flit of memories went through his mind, along with a deep seated dread. Mokuba had to come after him to pick up his body. And if he had been like this…that idiot girl and her friend had been only feet from him. There could be no way they could escape.

Wheezing, trembling against the might of the gut urge to hunt, to find, to sink his fangs and draw every last bit of delicious blood to his desert throat, he stumbled out of the bathroom. His first question was answered at the sight of his brother passed out on his bed, one of the coolers they used to hold blood besides him. Knowing how heavy the sleep came upon them, Seto let him lay, and instead followed the familiar aromic smell of Josephine.

Her stuff would still be here. Maybe he would find her body—no. No, he had to make sure.

The image of her standing in front of that window, striking a pose in the dying sunlight with that goofy, self-assured smile, burned into his mind's eye and, for a moment, his grip on his consciousness wavered. A small, tiny voice he had long ago decided he never wanted to hear again whispered, though the words ran like knives into his throat.

 _Not her._

He shoved himself forward, teeth clenched, a grunt smarting his throat. It wasn't till he turned the corner and saw none other than the bastard on the petite girl's finger in front of Joey's door that it occurred to him that he hadn't bothered to check the cooler for blood. He hadn't even bothered to look when his body screamed for it.

Perhaps he wasn't in as much control as he thought.

All that was done away with by sheer, hot malice. He grabbed the nearest thing he could reach and chucked it. He swore he could see red.

"Why are you in my house!?" Wasn't that Joey's friend? "And sucking on a child nonetheless?"

He didn't even hear her response, or the vampire's. He barely registered his foe pushing the girl back into the bedroom and lowering his stance. Because as the door opened, a fresh waft of warm, living smell came floating out. A familiar rosemary and thyme, undercoated with chocolate, rolled down his aching throat and about the hollow agony of his chest.

The primal instinct roared over his will, swallowing him. Yet, with an equally furious heave, he dug in his mental heels like a man on a raft of the sea, and managed to direct the murderous intent at the one who had started it all in the first place.

His foe met him head on, grappling Seto's shoulders like a wrangler to a goat's horns. Despite the iron hard strain of each of his muscles and the claws he sunk into the man's arms, Seto found himself forced onto his knees by an unmatchable strength. Red eyes bored into his. Then a foot slammed into his gut, forcing him down. Keeping him down.

Seto snarled and hissed, clawing and writhing at the leg. This shouldn't be possible. The enemy was two heads shorter than him, a dwarf! Nothing!

Red bled across his consciousness. Red, like blood. Chocolate blood, spiced with rosemary and thyme, like a heady Irish stew. Like home. A home he only vaguely remembered having.

He came to when his head thwacked against the edge of the tub.

"Mokuba!" roared a booming, baritone voice. "I told you to watch him!"

Wired, crazed with blood and the red and the dying, aching, gnawing need about to eat him whole, Seto scrambled from the tub just to be slammed down again by a foot and lost once more to the red.

The red parted with his hands once again on a mostly empty bag of blood. He threw it down, disgusted. As always, it tasted like the cold, stale leftovers from dinner he'd missed.

More importantly, sitting besides the tub on the toilet with his arms folded and looking for all the world like a king upon his throne was the red eyed, spiky haired freak.

"What are you doing in my house?" He snarled before having a blood bag thrown at his face.

"I'd be more grateful if I were you," said the other vampire, just as imperious as his posture. "You would be dead if it weren't for that girl appealing to my better nature. If you don't believe me we can always revisit your near death. Or you could just look past your juice pouch to your chest."

Seto yanked away the bag that he hadn't even realized he had bitten to glare daggers at the other. He didn't need to look down to know the thick bandages he now presumed Mokuba had wrapped about him had all been dyed the strange darker red, vampiric blood.

"If you've laid a single finger on her—"

"She's fine, also thanks to me." The vampire raised his chin to enhance the 'looking down his nose' effect. "If you want to keep it that way, you'll stay in that tub until that hole in your chest is only a memory."

"I don't take orders from murdering freaks."

"But you will be taking them from your teacher."

Seto blinked. "Excuse me? Is this some kind of joke? If this is about managing my blood thirst, I do just fine. Better than you even, so if you'll hold still so I can get out of this tub and murder you—OW!"

The vamp caught something round and blue that he had just bounced off of Seto's forehead. A bouncy ball? "Rule number one: never get cocky when it comes to your blood thirst. It will always be stronger than you."

"Did you just throw a—ack—HEY!"

"Rule number two," the freak didn't even have to move to catch the ball as it zoomed back from Seto's head. How was he doing that? "Older vampires will always ALWAYS be smarter, stronger, and better at staying alive than you. Though, I will give you some credit. The fact that you are able to keep a hold of your consciousness with most of your heart missing is nothing short of phenomenal. You're going places, kid."

"Don't call me kid, runt, and don't you dare throw that thing at my face again!"

The man gave him a droll stare. Then tossed the ball. Seto ended up smacking himself in the face in his attempt to catch it, but it was back in the toilet king's hand before he'd even blinked.

"Rule number three: no close relationships with humans. That means no marriage, no girlfriend, no bosom companion—whatever you want to call it. If they're close, they're dead. End of story. Don't believe me? Ask your brother. Or we can review whose door you ended up in front of, completely skipping the fact that you had a tote full of blood right next to you. You think the beast inside you doesn't know who's close to you? Because it does, and it will use that to get what it needs."

"Are you done?" he asked, wanting to get back to his stale blood bags and not wanting to lose face by biting in to another one in front of him.

The other vamp must have known what he was thinking, because he reached down into a cooler next to him and tossed another bag at Seto's face. Fortunately, Seto was prepared this time and caught it.

"Just drink your damn blood."

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Don't tell me what to do, _sir._ "

"Like hell."

"I can kill you."

"Oh, but your better nature has been appealed to. That threat no longer has backing."

At least that got rid of the stupid, imperious look the other guy was giving him. Instead it darkened, and Seto wondered if he was the only one seeing blood.

Without a word, the toilet king rose from his throne and marched out of the bathroom to be quickly replaced by a very anxious Mokuba.

"I'm so sorry, Seto, I thought you had enough and I didn't think you'd be waking up and I was just so exhausted and—" he cut short at the sharp look from Seto. More aware than most of when his brother wasn't in the mood, he bowed his head and retreated back to the doorway, where he quietly watched Seto do away with one bag after the next.

Finally, after three, he thought he could speak without breaking something. "Why is he here?"

Mokuba glanced back into the bedroom, avoiding Seto's gaze. "He knew more than me about how vampires work, and you were dying—"

"Then you should have let me die," Seto snapped. He felt instantly guilty when Mokuba flinched and hid his expression behind his thick dark bangs and sighed. "You justified it by asking him to teach me, didn't you?"

"Well, you said that you wanted everything he knew about how to kill vampires—"

"Yes, squeezed out of him like a lemon, not taught to me like I'm the karate kid and he's my sensei." He bit into a fresh bag, growling at the want to feel warm skin instead of cold, stiff plastic. "Any more news on the bear killer?"

Mokuba's chin jumped up. "Oh! Yeah. Nearly forgot, there's been some more attacks but these are different. They've caught the people on tape."

"People?" Last time he had checked, there'd only been one psychotic killer.

"Yeah. Apparently the cops had been keeping in under wraps since the media was caught up in the more gory deaths, but there have also been a string of bodies all across the city. Just last night while we were out someone was caught on tape attacking another person and biting them. Autopsy shows they died of the same causes as the others. What's really rich is that they've only just now realized that the combined organ failure was due to blood loss. Guess the lack of blood on the scene of the crime threw them off."

Seto frowned as he picked out some of the plastic bags that had gathered around him. So an increase in vampiric activity. A very significant one. One large enough for the law enforcement to notice.

"People are already saying that it might be vampires," continued Mokuba, pulling out his wide smartphone, almost more of a tablet. "But that's mostly the smaller media outlets and online chat groups. The larger news channels and those who are able to get interviews with the big authorities say the idea is ludicrous and blame some sort of kinky fanatic, or better, a group of kinky fanatics that worship Bram Stoker as a prophet. Oh, and they blame the cops for not bringing it up sooner, which is pretty rich seeing as that would have just made things messier."

Mokuba turned the screen towards Seto to show a running live broadcast from one of said major news platforms. As the perfectly made up woman on the screen talked about the Chief of Domino City Police firing a deputy for insisting something supernatural was at stake, the bold headline of "25 Blood Drained Victims Found" ran along the bottom.

Seto sighed. He really hadn't set out into this business to become some sort of hunter of the night, protecting the city. Bruce Wayne could keep that. All he had wanted was revenge, pure and simple, and now even that was being robbed from him. With how things were looking, he had no choice but to listen to what the short freak had to say.

After all, he nearly killed him.

"How's Joey?" Seto asked.

"Oh, she's fine," said Mokuba, bringing his fablet back around to tap around a bit more. "She and Yugi slept in the guestroom last night, I presume. I was going to have Roland take them home once they woke up."

Seto opened his mouth, but pause, unsure of just what exactly he had been about to say. This was good. He had been trying to make Joey get out of his life from the start. The end of her irritating tyranny was at hand.

And yet, he hesitated.

Luckily, for him, Mokuba was too absorbed in whatever he was reading to notice.

So he just didn't say anything.


	17. Friends or Foes?

Chapter 16

"You're okay. Good. We're leaving."

Joey took Yugi's wrist in a vice-like grip and started pulling her towards the window.

Yugi dug her heels into the carpet, alarmed.

"If we just wait a moment, they'll be gone!"

"You're right. We're going to need to ask Mokuba if we can borrow Roland, or at least some change for a taxi."

"Will you let go of my wrist already? I'm a perfectly sane human being and can walk on my own."

"Then get walking. I think I hear Seto's stupid growling getting quieter. Freaks."

But Yugi didn't move. She couldn't. She knew she should, but…

And the guilt came back doubled. She had done something wrong. She shouldn't be helping these people. But if Atem was right about her blood—if this old vampire was as bad as they said they were…

"I can't," she said.

Joey frowned and folded her arms. "What, you feel'n sick or something?"

"No, I," Yugi looked down to her hands. Past them she could see the fine, soft blue carpet that looked like it hadn't held a stain in its life.

"Aw, hell, don't tell me you've fallen in love with him."

Yugi flinched and threw her hands up in alarm. "No! No, nothing like that! I'm not that stupid. No, it's just…I think my blood may be curing him."

Joey looked almost insulted. "I did not just hear that come out of your mouth. Out the door, march. You know what, screw that, stay here. I'll find Mokuba and come back for you."

Yugi hadn't even decided if she wanted to say anything more before she didn't have a chance. Joey was out the door and gone.

She put a hand to her face as the ache in her chest crawled up into the back of her mouth.

Joey was right. Saying her blood could cure a vampire of vampirism was like saying sex with a child would cure a pedophiliac of their pedophilia. But even as she curled up into the corner of the window seat and pulled the curtains about her like a veil, the shock of warm sunlight on her skin made her remember his words. That vampirism was a just a disease that hurt people, nothing else. And hadn't she seen him try so hard to help others? Hadn't she seen the horror on his face when he pulled away from her neck? He hadn't had a choice in the matter…had he?

Yugi tried to imagine what she would do in his situation, and the heavy dread just grew greater. Because if she had woken up and found herself a vampire like that, she would have killed herself. She wondered if he had tried, and already knew he had. Hadn't his voice said as much? Perhaps the same beast inside that took over whenever he was low on blood also came out whenever he tried to destroy himself. It was like a parasite.

She didn't know how long she sat in the warm sun, waiting for the chill of night to fall away. But it was nice, letting her mind wander. Her stomach cramped for food, but she didn't want to leave this safe little haven and back into the world where truth was convoluted and she couldn't tell if Atem was what he seemed. Yes, he had been so kind. But he still had kept her against her will. But he had said she would let him go. But that had to be a lie. But had she even given him the chance to prove that?

She lifted her sore finger to her lips from where she had twisted it up in her shirt. It had stopped bleeding, but the cut was open and raw.

The door clicked open. "Yugi?"

For some reason, her heart stumbled at that low voice.

"I'm here."

She heard his footsteps. When he opened the door, he didn't hiss with pain at the sun, but his eyes squinted tight.

"I've got some bandages for your finger," he said, even as he had to turn his face away.

His face was pale, despite having heritage from the middle-east. Its sharp lines seemed less severe with his eyes closed and his thick lashes spread across his cheeks. She trailed down his firm jaw, down his rather slim throat, to the curve of his broad pale shoulders and chest. There were scars there she hadn't seen before, now brought out by the sunlight. Slim, silver things, criss crossing every which way. Without thinking, she reached across the small space between them to touch a rather large, deep scar over his heart.

He flinched at her touch. "What are you looking at?"

"This scar." It rippled beneath her fingertips, contrasting with the smoothness of his skin. "It's right over your heart."

He said nothing, nor did he move. Only once she realized what she was doing and pulled her finger back did he let out a long breath.

"Come out, little one. Let me fix what I've done."

His tone had suddenly grown so sad, and she knew it had to do with the memories behind that scar. Once more she allowed him to touch her as he took her hand and led her from the golden sunlight back into the darkened room. As her eyes adjusted, he guided her onto the floor and took her injured finger as though it were made of glass. She blinked, making out the plastic bottle he was opening. He dampened a cotton ball with it and dabbed at the cut like a butterfly landing. Even so, she bit her lip against the sting. As he cleaned the blood and set to wrapping the wound in gauze and cotton tape, she took another chance to really look at him. The silver scars were once more hidden by the darkened room, but if she strained he eyes, she could just see the largest one over his heart.

"What happened?" she asked. "I mean, if you don't mind telling. It's alright if you don't."

He tore the tape with his fingers. Then he sighed. "Yugi, you can ask me anything you want. After what I've taken from you, I can't deny you anything. I got that scar when I asked a friend to kill me, another vampire like myself. He was strong. We had even managed to find some strong chains."

The matter of fact way in which he said it somehow made it sound even more sad.

"But you're here…" she said.

The little grin told her he knew what she was thinking.

"When I woke up, not only had I killed him, but I had killed six other people as well." He put the spool of tape over the bottle of alcohol. "I haven't tried something like that again, heh. But, these are grim things that have nothing to do with you. Don't you want to know anything happy?"

"Like what?"

"Well," he gave her a crooked smile. "I have been alive for an awfully long time. I met Abraham Lincoln, once. In person."

Her eyes went wide. "Oh. Wow. What was he like? Do you remember?"

Before he could respond, the door opened.

"Alright, Yug, we're set to go." Joey froze. Then her expression sharpened into the face Yugi recognized from Joey's gang days. "What are you up to, vamp?"

"Just cleaning up her finger," said Atem calmly. "Where are you off to?"

"Home." Joey stomped over and hauled Yugi to her feet.

"Wait, Joe—"

"Then I'll guess I'll be visiting you sometime tonight. No refreshments, please."

Joey, who had been hauling Yugi towards the door, stopped and snarled at the vamp.

"Like hell! I see your muzzle around again—"

"You'll what?" and Atem's tone had taken on a deathly chill. As he lifted his eyes up from where they had been on the ground, they shone with a brilliant red that had been missing from before. Even as Joey wordlessly opened and closed her eyes, he rose, every inch of his bare chest and blood stained black jeans confident, sure, and taut.

Yugi tugged on her friend's grip, but Joey seemed to have shut down, including any muscles that would have released her grip. She could see her friend's knees began to tremble. Her lips buzzed, but Yugi couldn't hear what came out.

"What was that?" Atem asked, resting a hand in his pocket.

"I'll kill you."

That was not something Yugi wanted to hear. She started to say something, but was once more cut off.

"I'm going to be teaching Kaiba how to kill me once he gets up and about. If you stick around, I'll teach you too." A sharp smile that said he had Joey right where he wanted twisted his mouth. "It's not like you have something at home you want to rush to."

Joey flinched, but there wasn't much to say to that. They had been talking rather loudly the night before. She supposed neither of them realized it would be coming around to bite them in the butt.

"Wait, teaching him to kill you? Did I hear right?"

"Yes," said Atem, who tried to smile, though it came out as a grimace as his fangs had lengthened ever so slightly.

Joey flopped a finger to him, open mouth, paused, scrunched the finger into a fist, jerked the fist around, dropped her other hand from around Yugi's wrist, then settled for putting them in her pockets. She did, however, manage to aim her nostrils at Atem.

"I ain't no Buffy," she said. "Come on, Yug."

At last, Yugi managed to get her arm free.

"I can't!" she cried.

"Like hell!"

"If I can make a difference, I have to—"

"What, be a hero? This isn't a game, Yugi. Don't make me carry you."

"Please, Joey, I can—"

"Do what? WHAT? Nothing, you hear? All you are to these guy's is food—I'M you're best friend! Don't you even care about what this is doing to me?"

"Joey…"

"If I were to lose you—I can't—" Joey's voice was breaking up, and she had started to retreat. "You haven't even thought about my feelings once, have you? Hell, you don't even have a clue…"

"Joey, wait, I didn't mean it like that. I just want to help, and there are people dying out there right now."

But the lanky girl had already backed into the door and, in one swift movement, flung it open and fled outside.

Yugi ran to the door, hand outstretched, but knew she had no hope of catching up. Not only were Joey's legs longer, but the other girl creamed her in the athleticism department. That didn't mean her heart didn't keep racing as though she had.

When Atem's warm hand touched her shoulder, she shrugged it off. She wanted to say something snappy to get him to vanish, but her throat had tightened up so much she couldn't have spoken even if she wanted too.

So he waited a moment before touching her shoulder again, as gently as he had handled her hand.

"I'm sorry, Yugi."

She clenched her eyes against the tears that came out anyways.


	18. Confidence or Pride

Chapter 17

For the first time, Joey really appreciated just how huge Kaiba's mansion was. By the time she found a broom closet appropriate for privacy, she had dashed up so many staircases and halls that her emotional turmoil was thoroughly spent.

Even so, she craved the solitude and privacy that came once she shut the door tightly. By the time anyone bothered to look for her here, if they ever did, she would be done and able to continue on with life like a sane human being.

 _'She likes him,'_ she thought blithely. When it came down to it, Yugi was just like every other female protagonist in a badly written vampire novel: head over heels. For all Joey knew, she had a secret biting fetish and everything. Yeah the guy did have sort of a nice face, if you liked the shark-like, Middle-Eastern oil tycoon look.

But even as Joey told herself that, as she had been during her run, she knew, deep down, that the truth was Yugi was just too soft. She was too easy to manipulate. Even if the vamp had been the ugliest person in the world, if they had given her some proof, made up or otherwise, that her presence was somehow saving them or others, Yugi would throw herself away just like that. It was a trait Joey had come to hate about her. Yugi's lack of comprehension of just how much she meant to others in the end hurt the very ones she tried so hard for.

She didn't know how long she had been in there when the closet door clacked open, flooding Joey's safe, dark space with light.

The towering form of a vampire filled the doorway.

"What are you doing in here?" asked Seto Kaiba in his usual rude, no nonsense way.

Joey swallowed, her attention taken up by the blood soaked bandages about his chest. Her throat clicked as she swallowed again.

It only took a few seconds or so for Kaiba to get that she wasn't going to talk, as he sighed and crouched down to the balls of his bare feet.

"Did your brains finally turn on and tell you were in a house of monsters?"

Joey blinked hard towards his dark blue eyes and glared.

"I'm not in the mood for your insults, money bags. Go away."

"It's my closet."

"Then back off and I'll go somewhere else."

"It's my house."

"Like I'd want to stay here a second longer anyways."

"Then what's keeping you? It's certainly not me."

Her furious glare wilted and she raised a hand to cover the wrinkling of her chin. Her throat started to hurt again.

And Seto Kaiba just wouldn't look away. In fact, the steadiness of his gaze on her was getting rather unnerving and she had to look away.

"It's your midget friend," filled in Kaiba with a snort. "Doesn't want to leave her bloodsucker? That's rich."

"Shut up!" her voice cracked and shook.

"Why didn't you just sling her over your shoulder? You're twice her size, and if you're friends you'll get over it, right? Boys and girls and all that schmuck?"

Joey had to hide her face now. "Shut up! It's none of your business."

"It's in my house—"

"Screw your house! Just go poof into dust already!"

It was obvious now that he was crying. Her voice had warbled and shook all over the place, and she tried to stem the flow of snot on her jeans.

By some force of God, Kaiba actually complied and stayed quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Joey dared to believe he had wandered off in his weird, too-quiet vampiric way. They were sneaky-freak hunters of the night, after all. Silent go and silent come, catch the squirrel, eat the roadrunner.

But as she finally dared a huge, wet sniff and looked up, she found Kaiba in the exact same place as he had been before, hunkered down on his heels, forearms resting on his thighs, dark blue eyes on her. They shivered, bouncing from point to point on her face and arms.

"The vampire threatened you," he said as a statement, as though making it a question might make him seem less in charge of the situation.

Joey rubbed her face hard on her sleeve. "Sort of."

"Either he did or he didn't."

"Jeeze, why do you even care? He just said he'd more or less follow us and I just…I just want him _gone_. He's messing with Yugi's head, he's just got to be. And then he just got all…in my face, and I just…hell, why am I telling you?"

"Because the weak like to blubber."

"You're such an asshole! Aren't you suppose to be bleeding in a tub somewhere? You look disgusting."

"All of us get weak," he snapped, as though she had sorely misunderstood him. "But basically you're getting snot all over yourself and my cleaning supplies because you're intimidated by this undead dwarf with a bad taste in hair style?"

With a flare of hot indignation, Joey grabbed the first thing she could reach and chucked it at him. A plastic bottle of Windex flew past his ear and burst against the wall behind him.

" _He's going to kill her!_ " she cried. "And he could kill me too if I even tried! This guy isn't like some bully of hers, I can't just punch him out or kick him in the nuts, he—he—he could tear a hole in my chest and—just like he did to you, before I even—"

She had to stop. It had gotten hard to breathe. The reality washed over her, overwhelming her with what must not happen. There could be no world without Yugi, there just couldn't be.

"Even you," she managed to gasp as she pulled herself deeper into the closet. "You're—you're gonna—"

"Wheeler, calm down."

His irritated, drawl tone just served to upset her more. Of course he couldn't comprehend or care. He was one of them. He had most likely come to suck her dry, weakened by the hole in his chest. She had seen him, she had heard Atem, she knew what was about to come.

And, suddenly, after half a lifetime of not minding the idea of dying, she found herself inexplicably terrified of the prospect. She didn't want to die.

Her head spun. The world blurred. Her breaths were getting louder and shorter.

"Don't kill me," it came out garbled, she doubted he understood her.

"I'm not going to kill you." Again with the irritated tone. "Get your face out of your hands and calm down."

But she just clutched in tighter. Cold spikes prickled along her skin, ramming her thoughts in one direction. She couldn't die. She couldn't.

Yugi should be here. Yugi should stop the scary things, she always did. She always knew when Joey was having a nightmare. She always beat the scary games. And she was always the one who pulled the curtain back on Joey's fears to show that the horrors Joey had fought so hard to flee from were really just friends or harmless side-characters all along.

But Yugi was going to die. Yugi wouldn't come. And now Joey was going to die too.

A warm, hard hand grasped her shoulder. Joey choked on a scream.

"Honestly," sighed Kaiba.

The next thing Joey knew, she was being pulled out of the closet and into the too bright light of the hallway. She squawked, cried, knew the moment when his teeth sank past the bandages to her tender neck raced towards her—

To find herself draped over someone's lap and her back being gently rubbed.

No teeth came. And despite the rusty tinge of blood she tasted as she breathed through her open mouth, she found her breaths slowing and matching the pace of the warm hand on her back.

"I will have you know," he growled, but softly. "I find it insulting you should put me on the same level as that fool. Three hundred years, and does he have an empire to match mine? No. He lives in the slums mashing leaves. Not to mention I haven't killed anyone yet, thank you very much. I, after all, have the self-control of a god."

"That's humble," Joey managed to mumble.

"You have no idea."

"Shouldn't that just make me more afraid that you're going to suck me dry?'

"The fact that I didn't when I had the chance should attest to that."

Joey gave a low, shaken "Ha," at that. "Having your heart torn out is a bit more severe than a broken arm or whatever you had."

Kaiba grunted and took up one of her hands. Ignoring her flinch and squeaking protest, he pushed her off, faced her towards him, and raised the bottom of her wrist towards his mouth.

All semblance of calm fled her, but her legs wouldn't listen. She could only tug her arm and shout.

"Calm down," he said again, his blue eyes hard. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Then what the hell are you doing?!"

"Showing you something, so sit down and stop barking already, you're giving me a headache."

It took a few minutes for Joey to fully accomplish that, which she probably should have been embarrassed about, but his impossibly, inhuman grip of steel on her arm wasn't helping. The proof of his supernatural powers worked on her much the same as staring down a ghost.

But his eyes never left hers, reassuringly human in their gaze.

When he finally opened his mouth and set those long fangs on her wrist, she had more or less given in to her fate and only winced as his teeth broke the skin and his lips came down to seal around the wound. His eyes closed, but his hard expression never relaxed.

For what seemed like an eternity, they sat there, her wrist throbbing with an ever dulling ache as he lifted his teeth and lapped his velvet hot tongue across the wounds. The longer she sat there, feeling his tongue, facing what she had feared so much, the more calm she felt.

The cold once his mouth left was almost more painful than the bite. So was the touch of the handkerchief he used to bandage her wrist. She didn't miss how his fingers shivered ever so slightly, and yet she didn't feel any fear.

"Like I said," he said. "I'm not like him. I'm not going to kill you, nor do I plan on getting into a situation where I'll lose my conscious will and do so. I know myself."

Joey felt her mouth twitch. "And this was supposed to help me feel better how?"

"Who said I was trying to help you feel better? You're little drama is retarded. Just take your friend and go, I'll take care of the bloodsucker."

"Says the guy who just sucked my blood."

"No sucking was involved."

"Oh, excuse me, blood _licker._ Yes, that's much more posh."

His eyes narrowed, but he didn't look all that displeased as he rolled back to his feet and stood. But it was hard to tell with him, she had found. He struck her as the kind who did their best to keep most of their true emotions hidden. Let's say she had a lot of experience with those kinds of folk.

As he reached down to offer her a hand, a short, petite girl flew around the corner, her face flushed and eyes bright with tears.

"Joey!" Yugi cried.

Kaiba withdrew his hand and turned away.

"Joey, I was so worried—I'm so, so sorry, I'm the worst friend in the world—no—the worst person in the world and we'll be going right away. You're right, of course you're right, please don't run away from me like that again." She collapsed on the floor next to Joey, all bushy tri-dyed hair and tears, and threw her arms around Joey's neck.

"Roland's still waiting for you up front," said Kaiba without looking down at the girls.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks. Where's that again?"

He pointed down the hall. "Down the stairs, through the first double doors to the left, and down the grand."

With that, he slipped a hand into his surprisingly blood-free gray sweats and walked away.

Joey stiffened. Oh no. How had she never noticed how beautiful his shoulders were? Such broad, manly—damn it, they were perfect.

 _Like that would mean anything!_

"Joey! You're wrist! What happened? Did he bite you?"

"Not anymore than yours," Joey said, pulling herself and Yugi to their feet. "Can we…can we go home now?"

"Yes. Yes, let's go home."


	19. Alone With Darkness and a Ball

**Every time I manage to get my acne on my face under control, it just moves to my upper back. It's like it's a pussy demon escaping the exorcism of anit-acne-salicicsomethingorother- acid. What do I have to do? Burn off my skin every month? Like I could afford that.**

 **And if I'm going to have zits, can't they be the huge awesome ones that spurt pus like a volcano? Not the stupid annoying little ones that just swell into red blotches of ugly death that don't leave for weeks at a time.**

 **Ugh.**

Chapter 18

He didn't know how long he sat at the top of Kaiba's grand staircase, staring at the door where she had vanished. Without a thought to it, he had tried to follow her. Blinded by the sunlight, he had to go by smell, but was stopped by her hands on his arms.

"Get back inside, Atem."

"I'm coming with you—"

"No," and her firmness startled him. She hadn't even sounded so sure when she had been in his apartment, telling him she was going home. "I…I'm not your captive or your slave, and I can't be your friend. There are people who will be hurt or worse if anything happens to me, and that's going to happen if I stay around you any longer."

The trembling, fragile thing that had been born when she ran from his hands to find Joey, cracked.

"Of course you're not—I'm sorry I kept you there, I just—I won't let anything happen to you, I swear. I'll die first. I'll…I'll find you."

"No, you won't."

"You can't control me."

"But I know you have a good heart." Her voice had trembled at that and her hands had turned him around with surprising strength. "I don't want to see you again, vampire. Please. If not for me, than for the protection of my friends and family."

And so he had withdrawn to the top of the steps, where he stared at the door, waiting for night to come. Some part of him still intended to head off into the night after her, somehow picking out her butterscotch lavender from the mess of human smells, but even once evening bathed the entrance hall in red, he still sat there feeling broken, vulnerable, and alone.

The worst part was, he didn't know how it had happened.

 _Am I just upset because my possible chance for a cure left,_ he thought, _or is it because of her? Because of what she brought to me again? Is it because she is gentle and kind and soft? Or is it because I've become that pathetic and lonely that I can't handle my long overdue connection walking out?_

Or was it that he had fallen in love with taking care of her? Whatever it was, it couldn't be because he fell in love with the girl herself. Vampires had no sexual attraction, and little need for romance. Or, at least, Atem always had. There was just something about waking up and realizing you'd killed your own mother that made a man fearful of connections, with women especially.

Oh yeah…mother…he wasn't suppose to remember that.

It was in this very dark place that Atem approached Kaiba in his dining room, because the fool didn't know how to listen to directions. Blood had already stained the sweats he wore, and his recently changed bandages still splotched with red.

His first instinct was to dash forward and tear out the man's heart again, and then the kid's as well. It would be two monsters out of the world. He could even use the rich bastard's blood supply and other goodies to track down more in the city. It would be a wonderful, blind night of hunting.

Instead, he pulled out the blue bouncy ball from his pocket.

Kaiba didn't seem to notice him, having his nose in a laptop, reading something. So Atem took aim for his temple.

His aim was never wrong.

"DAMN IT!"

"Rule number four," man, he loved the guy's reactions. "Always be aware of your surroundings."

"I'm sorry, was I suppose to bow to you when you walked in? I didn't think you craved that much attention—ack—STOP THAT!"

Atem caught the blue ball. Best 50 cents he'd ever spent. "Rule number five, don't waste time talking with your enemy. It's lame and gets you killed."

"Speaking of wasting time—don't you dare throw that ball or I swear I'll tear off your face!"

Atem just smirked, the hand holding the ball tilted over his shoulder for a throw. "Oh dear, have you forgotten rule number two already?"

Seto Kaiba's blue eyes could have seared holes into concrete. After a few seconds, in which Atem contemplated which part of the taller vampire's head he should hit, Kaiba snapped his laptop closed and swiveled on the chair to face him.

"I thought you'd be teaching me something more useful to the actual slaying of vampires."

"These are useful, or do you not remember them?" He tipped the hand with the ball back further. "Because we can work on that."

"Then write them down on a piece of paper or something, I have a photographic memory, and get to the important stuff so I can kill you already."

Atem smirked, wondering if the kid knew what he was asking for. After all, he was in a rather foul mood. Everything would have been going fine if this punk hadn't broken into his house in the first place. Though the better part of him knew that wasn't the main problem here, it felt all too satisfying to place blame on someone other than himself, if only for a moment.

"Alright," he shifted to his other hip, bringing the ball down to toss as he talked. "But first you must remember the rules. Let's say there's seven. Seven's a good number."

Atem had to give it to Kaiba. He gave condescending glares very well.

"You don't even have them memorized yourself and you think they're important?"

"Oh, I have them memoriezed," and just because he knew Kaiba was off guard and because he could, Atem chucked the ball.

"OY!"

"Rule one: never get cocky with your bloodthirst."

"Are you going to—oof!"

"Rule two—"

"I don't give a—"

"—older vampires will always be stronger, faster, and smarter than you."

"Stop—"

"Rule number three:-"

"ENOUGH WITH THE BALL!"

"No close relationships with humans. Rule number four—"

"Okay! I get it already!"

"Always be aware of your surroundings, like a ninja." Atem held off on the ball. Probably because Kaiba had stood and now toward over him, radiating menace. But most likely because it wasn't as fun when Kaiba knew when to expect it. Then he didn't flinch as bad.

So he gave his best, fanged smirk up at the guy and reached for his shadows. They coiled to his ankles readily.

He pulled back his hand.

Kaiba's eyes narrowed. "Don't. You. Dare."

Atem jerked his hand—Kaiba launched forward—and into a wall as Atem slid behind him and to the other side of the room with inhuman speed.

"Tut tut, forgetting number two again."

"I'm gonna—ACK!"

"Rule number five: don't waste time talking. In fact, be as silent as the grave. The moment they notice you, you're dead."

"Well, guess who I've noticed—HA! Missed—OW!"

Bull's eye. Literally. If the kid were still human, he'd be looking to a nice ol' shiner in the morning. "Rule number six: a vampire's strongest asset is his smell. Disable that, and you disable the vampire." Atem jumped to the side as Kaiba came shooting forward. Good boy remembered rule number five that time. As he did so, he noticed a bowl of fruit on the table. "I think our first lesson will have to do with that, actually."

Just as Kaiba launched again, Atem finally flicked his coiled shadow's loose. They sprung out across the floor and up the vampire's legs quicker than the blink of an eye. The next thing Kaiba knew he was slammed face first into the kitchen tile.

The dark, maliciousness monster within him purred. That must have hurt.

When Kaiba pushed himself to his knees, hissing obscenities and spitting, the shadows slithered up his sides and tied his arms to his side and his head arched back as though with a rope hooked to his wrists.

Atem didn't smile this time as he approached Kaiba, who didn't fight the shadows. In fact, his gaze was quite calm as they met his, in a cold, glacier sort of way.

"Rule number seven, and probably the most important: every vampire has a skill. The majority have simple ones, like enhanced smell or strength, but occasionally you'll meet one like me." He flashed a fang, but it wasn't anywhere close to a smile. "I'm in a league all of my own."

He snapped his fingers and the shadows let Kaiba loose. The man pushed himself to his feet, but didn't try to attack Atem right away. This pleased Atem, even if watching the man flail was entertaining. The better half of him knew it wasn't good for him to feed his darker tendencies like this.

"I take it I'll never grow wings then," said Kaiba flatly.

"Most likely not. I've only ever met one another vampire that could fly." And his bones now petrified in some forgotten part of the Egyptian desert.

"How do I figure out mine, then?"

"How should I know? I'm not you."

"Actually admitting you don't know everything? I'm stunned."

The sense of dark fun was seeping from him a bit, leaving him tired. He had been looking forward to teaching him some basic hand to hand stuff, but suddenly found all he wanted to do was find a deep hole in a graveyard somewhere and go to sleep.

So he went with the bowl of fruit he had noticed earlier and pulled out a bright, fat lemon. He went around the counter to pull out a knife to cut it in two.

"How very domesticated of you," said Kaiba, eyes colder than ever. "Why not tear it apart with your claws?"

"Because I'd rather not have a rash."

Kaiba snorted. "Allergic to lemons?"

In answer to that, Atem came around and stuffed the lemon into Kaiba's face. Guess he hadn't quite gotten out all his malicious intent.

Kaiba jerked back with a violent sneeze and hiss of pain. Red blotches were already blooming across his nose and cheeks.

"The garlic myth isn't entirely false," Atem said above Kaiba's cursing. "There's a similar chemical in lemons and lime that doesn't mesh well with a vampire's system. Namely their sense of smell, if you'd be so kind as to take a sniff."

"And you stuffed that in my face?" But Kaiba lifted his hand from his face and took a tentative sniff. His eyes widened.

"Get use to the sting," continued Atem. "Because you're going to be bathing in it every day, unless you'd rather smell like garlic."

"Why the hell would I want to bathe in this stuff?"

"Because as long as you do, no vampire will be able to catch wind of you. Not the smell of vampire, not the smell of lemon, not the smell of anything on you. You'll be more or less invisible until you jump in front of them."

For the first time, Kaiba seemed to actually be impressed. His frown still cut into his face like a knife, however.

"Every day seems like much. My face is still burning."

"You'll get use to it. In diluted amounts, that is. I have a recipe I'll give you that has some herbs to counteract the inflaming properties of the citrus and garlic without infringing on the annulment properties. But it's important to use it consistently, else your body won't become accustomed to it and every time you try to put it on you'll look like a sunburned nuke victim for the rest of the day."

Kaiba gave the lemon a tentative squeeze, then threw it back onto the counter. He raised a hand to his face again, scowling.

"Damn, it stings."

Atem nodded. "Still up for the 'real' lessons?"

"Only if you give me that stupid ball so I can vaporize it."

At this, the older vampire smiled. "No can do. There needs to be a penalty if you do something wrong, and I'm afraid if I'm forced to do anything else, given my present mood, you won't like it so much."


	20. Talent and Time

**Because I lost a bet and it demands payment, which is an update before Monday. X.X Didn't realize I'd be regretting it, because writing has always come quickly for me. But I'll be getting a job soon and will have much less time to write...which is depressing. But hey, I have a boy to take care of and want to stand on my own. ^.^ Wish me luck.**

 **{please excuse any typos or stupid mistakes.**

Chapter 19

For once, Seto didn't challenge the older vampire on that. It didn't take his ten years of people reading experience in the fast track business world to see the percolating darkness that hadn't been there before making the man's eyes glow even in the excess light of the setting sun.

Seto Kaiba was the opposite of stupid, after all. Not even his pride could rob him of that. He could see that something had changed, maybe even unhinged, since the girls had left, and despite the irritating, but harmless, bouncy ball harassment in the kitchen, Seto was still made hyper aware of the fact that this person could kill him before he could even begin to put up a fight. The only reason he had been able to harm him before was because he had been sniping him from a helicopter.

And he had Mokuba to worry about as well.

Atem was unimpressed when Seto said he had black belts in five different martial arts.

"Vampires don't have the weak points that humans do. A man you can punch in the gut or the kidney and he'll be down. With a vampire, all those organs have become elastic, tough, and thickened with blood, so it's like punching a bag of rocks and water. Not to mention with the hyper healing in play, the body isn't as quick to respond with pain, since it's unnecessary."

Atem had approached him then, and Seto actually had to force himself not to flinch or fall into an attack position. They hadn't turned on the light in the mansion's exercise gym, having eyes that would do better without it, but Seto had begun to reconsider that choice as the darkness only gave the glow of the other's eyes more character and detail, and Seto could see hatred boiling there. Pure, cold, malicious hatred.

It hadn't been there before.

"Show me your fighting stance." Still with that casual, relaxed voice.

Seto did so, loathing how dry his mouth had become.

"Keep this up and you won't have to see the ball," said Atem, bright eyes bouncing from point to point. "Yes. Balance is still the same. But strength—widen your stance. It will feel strange, but you can trust your body to hold it now, and you're going to need the extra leverage. Now, the only weak points on a vampire's body is the eyes and throat. Don't even bother with a knee to the crotch, the sexual organs are all but atrophied on most, but the throat gains enough nerve endings to more than make up for that. There's a lot of sensors there. Having all your target's up high is another reason for the widened stance. The eyes have also gained more nerves, becoming more sensitive. Hit the eyes and throat, swipe out their feet, then go for the heart. That's the most basic strategy I can teach you for today."

Seto smirked, confident it betrayed none of his apprehension. "So, your balls are shriveled up? That sucks."

The red eyes came back to his face, and every muscle in Seto's body tensed.

"Let's begin."

The sparring began. Seto had prepared himself for pain—for a bit of the hatred burning in the other's gaze to find an outlet on his still healing self. But to his surprise, the older vampire was almost gentle in his teachings. The strength he used against Seto was carefully measured and controlled to be just enough to stop, but not enough to harm. Even when Seto made a snide remark and ended up on his back, the bright eyes boring holes into his prostrate figure, Atem only held out a hand and helped him to his feet.

It wasn't till the first morning light peeked through the curtains and Seto's thirst became mind numbing that it clicked.

Atem didn't hate him. He hated what he was.

That same hatred was also directed at Atem himself, for what he was. He loathed it with a passion deep enough to spike his bloodlust so much his eyes nearly shone like stars in the dark equipment room.

Once Atem left, Mokuba appeared with the cooler of blood bags. Seto dove into it, burning with shame as he couldn't even control his desperate pants. As the plastic once more broke beneath his fangs, he couldn't help but think that at least Atem and him had once thing in common.

"It's been crazy busy tonight," said Mokuba, squatted down next to the cooler. "Five more people have died, this time around a morgue in the basement of a hospital. They got video footage of people who were supposed to be corpses sprinting out in the nude. There's also a rumor on the internet that the hospital has had a lot of cases of patients who were brought in with low blood volume and nurses being attacked."

Seto heaved the last bit of the blood down and tossed the empty back away. "How many?" He reached for another and remembered the velvet soft feel of Joey's wrist. The plastic felt like metal against his gums in comparison.

"An exact number wasn't included in the rumor, but there's speculation of everything between half a dozen to almost fifty." He brought out the tablet he had been keeping in a small side satchel as he moved the cooler. "I got a new clip I think you might find funny, at least."

He tapped it on and turned the screen to face Seto. A clean cut newsman, looking a bit pale and dark eyed, read off insistence after insistence from the fire department to the medical reports, that there were simply no such thing as vampires and it would be impossible for vampires to have done any of these things. A disease or a madman or even a collective prank, but not vampires.

Mokuba was right. It was funny. Hilarious, even.

"So…" Mokuba tapped the screen, and for the first time Seto picked up a bit of out of place excitement in his brother.

"So what?" he asked.

"What are we going to do about it?"

That was also funny. "I am not Batman, nor am I ever going to be Batman."

Mokuba grinned. "Oh, come on. You're even a vampire now, it's too good. And if we don't do anything, there's no saying if there's even going to be any humans left in Domino."

"Then we'll give what we know to the police and they can do something." He tossed aside the now empty blood bag and took a moment to decide if he should have another. His blood thirst still murmured, but he couldn't take any more of that damn plastic.

"They're not going to believe it until it's probably too late."

"Then that's there issue."

Mokuba rolled his eyes so hard, his head went along with it.

"You're bad ass routine isn't working on me, Seto. Did you tell Atem about any of this?"

Seto closed the cooler. "Nope."

"Seriously?"

Seto stretched hard to the left, and his back gave a satisfying pop. "Ugh, I'm beat. Check up on security for me, will you? I'm heading to bed."

"What about Joey?"

This made Seto stop. "What about her?"

"She's out there with all this. She's even in the kind of neighborhood where the attacks have been happening."

Seto started to turn to stare at his brother, than stopped, irritated with himself for reacting at all. Josephine Wheeler was nothing. Not only that, but she was one in three million. What were the chances the dozen or so newborn vampires in this city would find her out of all the lot?

"If you were worried, why did you let her go?" he asked instead.

"Well I couldn't very well stop her." Something like pain passed over Mokuba's face before he did away with it just as a good business man should. "She's terrified of us."

The memory of Joey in front of the window filled with red setting sunlight, hand on her hip, shoulders back in triumph, rose to Seto's mind. She had looked fearless, then. Reckless even.

"That's how it goes," he said, only half hearing himself.

A few days passed with something like a routine. At nights, Atem would return from his hole in the wall, sniff him to test that Seto had been staying on his irritating lemon shampoo routine, and then they would go to his personal gym (which had been cleared), and begin their lessons. The amount of times he was smacked in the head with the little blue ball reminded him of earlier days when he still made mistakes. By four in the morning, Seto would collapse once more in the hall, Mokuba would bring the cooler, and Atem would vanish without another word. Apparently, the leaf musher actually had a job doing just that.

On the second day, Seto demanded to know how Atem managed to get by on so little sleep. Before, when Seto had been human, he had been able to function at maximum with only 6 hours of sleep. Now he had no choice in the matter. He and Mokuba both had to sleep twelve hours or their bodies would find the worst moments to force it on them. It was like they had become narcoleptic.

"It's part of being newborn," said Atem, who had been tossing his blue ball threateningly, as Seto had yet to jump to the ceiling and hold himself there without making a sound. "After the first year it should wear down to the usual seven to eight hours. The older a vampire gets, however, the…less human he becomes. He needs less sleep, less blood, the body becomes more like stone, and the eyes become permanently red."

"And the glowing?" Seto asked wrly, eyes already on his target steel beam. He had found that Atem actually had a weakness for teaching. He couldn't resist answering a question, and so Seto hoped any noise he may make would be hidden beneath Atem's talking.

"As blood super inflates the back of the eyes and the cones and plates are adapted, there is more reflection in the cornea. During moments of intense emotion or blood lust, the vessels are super saturated even further and—I heard that."

The ball hit his right ear and he came crashing down with a muffled bang of the wrestling mat.

Thus, Seto's work began to suffer. He could not keep up all night practices and go to work at the same time. Especially since his secretary and closer employees were beginning to wonder where the workaholic had run off to.

Mokuba suggested sending a note that they were holing up in the mansion until all the rampant deaths and vampiric attacks waned off (which were doubling by the day), and though Seto loathed the idea with every fiber of his being, he couldn't bring himself to cancel his training sessions with Atem, even though he loathed that vamp and his damn ball. Or, rather, he couldn't quit because he loathed him. After all, the end goal was to kill his teacher.

And Atem encouraged that.

On the fourth day, while Seto caught his breath, Atem played tendrils of dark shadow about the room with lazy flicks of his fingers.

"Maybe I could make some targets for you to practice on." He closed his hand into a fist, and the end of the half dozen or so tendrils began to curl in, trembling. Then they simply…dissipated. Atem sighed.

And idea came to Seto's mind. Since he was eager to do something that didn't involve physical effort or that stupid blue sphere of hell, he went on the old strategy of luring the professor into talking.

"When did you figure out how to do that?" Atem had already tested Seto for the most common of talents, strength, smell, and speed, and found him lacking. He was hoping he could find it sooner than later.

His scarlet-eyed teacher frowned. "I'm actually…not entirely sure. The shadows are strange ones."

Seto sat up, pulling his ankles to him. "Elaborate."

Atem sent out another tendril, which snaked across the floor to curl around a set of dumbbells. "I…I was always somehow aware of the shadow, even before I was turned. Probably not unlike anyone else. Just laying in the dark and imagining I could feel it pressing in around me, like water, except seeing me at the same time. Aware. Unthinking. But there." He flexed his fingers and the dumbbell of 300 plus pounds thunked to the floor and came sliding towards him. "I think that's why children are often afraid of the dark. It isn't just the unknown. It's some old instinct from ancient days when we knew when we had reached the edge of our tiny senses. I suppose my fascination of meditating in the dark after two hundred years or so allowed my mental capabilities to adapt. So much of the body is changing when you become a vampire, evolution comes easy."

"So…you're saying this isn't necessarily your talent?"

Atem gave Seto a strange look. "Then why haven't I met anyone else who can work this, human or vampire?"

"As you said. They didn't have a strange fascination with laying around in the dark, playing pretend that it was watching them." Seto smirked. "Why don't you give me a try? Tell me how you do it, old man."

Atem rolled his red eyes. Then flicked the ball smack dab between his eyes. Seto swore, something he was getting better at every day with his monster.

But the next thing he knew, Atem was commanding him down the hall and to the darkest closet in his basement, where they spent the rest of the night 'feeling' the darkness.

Which gave him a lot of time and space to think.

A cocky, lanky blonde cropped in more than a few times. This time, she didn't just stand before the window or look up at him with eyes gleaming with frightened tears. She ran down the halls of his mansion with reckless abandon, half naked and laughing at the top of her lungs. She stood in his kitchen frowning at a pan filled with eggs, no in consternation, but in uncharacteristic concentration.

But past that, deeper into the darkness, he began to see other things. Stranger things. Josephine, walking down a dark street dressed in baggy men's clothes. Josephine with her pale freckled face to the sky, teeth bared in defiance as moonlight shone off her tear stained cheeks. Josephine trying to play a video game with her toes in an unfamiliar room with a skylight and posters of Duel Monsters. Josephine, running, hand in hand with her tiny friend. Josephine struck down by a man with wild, platinum hair. Josephine down. Bleeding. White. Glassy eyed. Throat stained a too bright red and punctured with two, jagged, torn holes.

He sucked in a breath and smelled…all of it. The blood, the must of trash, the old gasoline from the street behind him, the layers of pollution baked onto the sides of the buildings, the murky cold sky high above. He could see the grooves in the bricks. The dips of Joey's pores. Each strand of her gold blond hair.

Seto broke out of the closet, gasping for breath, covered in an icy sweat, and trembling from head to foot.

Atem, who had been coaching Seto from outside the closet (like hell the two of them were about to get cozy together in close quarters), dropped to his haunches.

"Kaiba? What happened?"

"I saw…I saw…" But his mind had started to spin, still ripe with the chocolate stew of rosemary and thyme. "It was so real, I could see—I've never seen that place—those places—"

"Slow down and sit back. Here, against the wall. Breathe."

"I don't need you to tell me what to do!" Seto snapped, struggling to his feet instead. "Wheeler. She's hurt. She's—where's my phone? Mokuba."

Despite knowing he kept his phone off of him during training to stop it from being smashed between vampiric forces of brawn, he patted himself anyways, stumbling down the hallway like a drunk. For some reason, his eyes didn't seem to want to work. His vision kept blurring in and out, jumping between visions of white skin and cloudy brown eyes.

 _Not her. Not her. Not her._


	21. The Light in the Empty

**This is turning out longer than I expected. Well, in this chapter, Yugi proves to be too easily trusting and not who she wants to be, and I probe to be busy. X.X Which reminds me:**

 **I don't know how many of you know this, but I worked as a ghostwriter for 2 years until I quit it. It wasn't because I wasn't making enough (I was actually making really good money and had loads of people asking for my work). But it felt like my soul was being sucked out oto write a novel in three or four weeks just for someone else to take credit for.**

 **But I'm still opened to commissions if anyone wants a certain kind of story. ^.^ Just PM me if you're interested. Don't worry, I'm cheap for my fans. But it could be a great Christmas present for anyone you know-or for yourself. I can do at least 10,000 words a week.**

Chapter 20

A long week of numb sleeplessness finally came to an end for Yugi. She said good-bye to Joey at the gate, aching almost as much as Joey was that she had been grounded from seeing anyone, especially her best friend, then went home and collapsed on her bed. There, she listened to the distant taps and grumbles of the house and the lazy traffic outside. She closed her eyes to sleep, but her brain, which had been dead when she needed it, spun and twirled.

Red eyes. Sharp, shark-like features if viewed one way. Earnest, gentle man if viewed the other.

She had made the right choice. Her and Joey were safe. She was back to school and had been able to catch up in her school work. Crisis averted. Well, as far as school went. Her mother had grounded her for 'running off with Joey to camp.' At least the bite marks on her neck had healed enough for a band-aid, heaven forbid she have to tell her mother why her neck was bandaged when there was a vampire scare.

For the world had changed while she had been locked away in her tower. Every day new deaths, new attacks, came in, with the majority happening in hospitals where those who were bitten and bodies were inevitably brought—and where new born vampires awoke crazed with blood.

Without her notice, Yugi's fingers trailed up to her neck where the scabs had been picked off. Even the band-aid had raised suspicion.

 _But Joey and I didn't turn…_

A girl and a boy in their grade had, though. And killed two nurses.

 _I should feel more afraid._

She told herself that every day, but even as she stared up at the same patch of ceiling molding that she had been staring at for the past hour, all she could feel was the numbness. It almost hurt, like the numb that comes from cold. Even when she wondered if she could have somehow prevented this by staying with the vampires and screwing up everything with Joey, all she felt was a twinge in her stomach.

And she didn't know why.

The red sunlight faded to the gray of twilight. Yugi sat up. She did her homework with a bland concentration she wished she could have had during the lecture. She did some cleaning and then went down to make dinner. Mother making dinner? That was a fine, sexist idea there. No, Yugi or Grandpa made dinner. Mother would probably eat out. Mother worked. Mother had a dream, a career, a life. Cooking was for the unambitious. Nevermind the fact that Grandpa worked as well. He did it as an act of love, though.

Yugi pondered where that strange bit of wry bitterness came from as she flipped sliced potatoes and hotdogs in the pan. Bits of cooked potato clung to the spatula like clumps of buttered flour. Grandpa past through to sniff at dinner, thank her, and start small talk about school. Yugi answered naturally, as she had no reason not to. Grandpa didn't notice, or was too polite to, though she did see him frown.

Dinner was served. They ate. The leftovers were set aside for mother. They went to the living room and watched the news together, rife with bold headlines of the number of deaths and brief clips of deranged, fanged people that were supposed to be dead launching at the camera or hapless victims.

At some point, her grandpa snorted.

"Give us the weather already. Like running around with your head cut off like a chicken is going to change anything." He patted Yugi's knee. "Say, what do you think about heading to the mountains until all this blows over?"

"I can't, I have school," she said, realizing too late that she had said it too flat.

"Didn't you say half your class had already ran for it?" he gave a low, mirthless chuckle. "God damn apocalypse is upon us."

Yugi shrugged. Numb. She couldn't seem to care. "Could we take Joey with us if we did?"

"Course. Heaven forbid her block of a father think to go anywhere. I still say we call social security on him."

"She's almost eighteen." And Joey had adamantly begged Yugi's grandfather not to, as it would have meant the splitting up of their duo. The two girls had always had something a bit deeper than friendship between them.

"Meh."

And he fell quiet, once more tuned to the screen.

For some reason, the only half-born attempt at feeling even some of the alarm and care from the news from her grandpa unnerved Yugi. She got up and went upstairs to the bathroom. She stared at her reflection for longer than she cared to know, then stripped and showered. It was a while before she got out, but the TV was still on downstairs and she didn't hear the voice of her mother.

She didn't exactly walk to her room. She lingered in the hallway. Took a step. Wondered at herself. Took another step.

 _What is wrong with me?_

She thought she could see the bottom of the numbness now, and it wasn't numbness at all. It was a maw, gaping and empty. A want so deep, so hopeless, and yet so vast, that it just hunt open like the jaws of a dead whale.

And yet, the depth only sucked the life from it, leaving it to surface to her chest and heart as numbness. Cold, unfeeling, vacant numbness.

 _But what is it that I want?_

Joey's presence at school had alleviated it, but it hadn't left entirely.

The metal doorknob to her room was cold against her clammy palm. She shrugged to herself and opened it, eyes trailing along the bottom of the door as it ruffled the old, brown carpet.

And to a pair of sturdy, men's boots.

Before she could completely register that someone was already in her room, hands whipped about her, shoving her into a familiar chest with almost break-neck speed. The air rushed out of her, but not before she caught a whiff of lemon and sage.

It was like a curtain was thrown back. Sunlight burst into the dark numbness, dissipating the darkness as though it had never been there.

Too quickly the arms pushed away and she was left cold and stunned in the doorway. The vampire shrunk back into the darkness, just visible by the orange stripes from the street lamp through the blinds. Just like the first time they had met, his eyes glowed red. But, for once, it didn't frighten her.

"I'm sorry," said Atem quickly. "I shouldn't—I meant to just bring something and leave, the message is there, I just—I had planned too—"

"It's fine," she said, just as quickly, shutting the door behind her. "Lower your voice. Someone might here you."

"Ugh, sorry."

She didn't turn on the light, knowing well from the low-lit days in Kaiba's mansion and Atem's apartment that vampiric eyes saw through the night as well as she did the daylight. And, for some reason, the thought of blinding him unnecessarily didn't appeal to her as it should.

For a long minute, they stood there in awkward quiet. Yugi tried to understand why she only felt normal now that he was there. Was she developing an addiction for life threatening situations?

"I should go," he said at last.

Her stomach jerked. "Wait! Why are you here?"

"To drop this off." He lifted something that looked like a bottle in the dim lighting. "It's the same stuff you used when…you were at my place. It should stop vampires from catching your scent, which should hide you pretty well should a hungry one pass by. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a bit of a commotion going on in Domino."

Her mouth actually tried to smile at that. "Kind of hard not to notice, especially if you've recently been kidnap by two of them." She blanched. "Not that it was that bad! You weren't, like, kidnapping kidnapping, you were just—"

"Call it for what it is," he said, and she couldn't help but flinch at his harsh, flat tone.

She hugged her hands to her chest, hopelessly confused as to why her heart fluttered so painfully. She had hurt him. "I'm sorry."

"Why you would even say that," he started, sounding somehow just as bemused as her, but hesitated. "I should go."

She nodded and, even though she could feel the cool draft from the open window behind the blinds, she stepped aside from the door.

But the seconds grew longer, and he didn't move. He just stayed there, as though frozen.

"Yugi," he hesitated yet again. "I…I had decided…it was best if you didn't know…"

"What?"

He sighed and his brilliant eyes disappeared. "I…Joey's been attacked."

The darkness and cold came rushing back, but with none of the kind numbness. The blood rushed from her face so quick she wavered. Just as she fell back against the wall, his hands reappeared on her upper shoulders.

"Kaiba found her. She was dead, but her body is showing signs of the change. I think whatever resistance her cells had to the change was weakened when she died and that's why she's been human till now."

The hands at her chest clenched so hard her nails bit into her knuckles. Perhaps smelling the breaking of skin, the warm hands moved to hers, carefully prying apart her fingers with an unyielding strength.

"You can't go to her now, Yugi, no one can. I'm sorry. It's too dangerous."

"When?" she heard herself say.

"When?"

"When can I see her? When will it be okay?"

"…Yugi, I have almost three hundred years of experience in tempering my blood thirst. If even I can't have human relationships—"

" _You are not going to keep me from Joey!_ "

He jerked back, withdrawing his touch. "This is why I was not going to—"

"So I wouldn't know?" She had always been docile to the point of irritation for others, but now she shoved at him with all her strength. She heard the ornaments on her desk rattle from impact. "So I would just wake up tomorrow and find Joey's gone and never know why? _You think that's better?"_

"Yes," he said instantly.

"That's not your place to decide!" she all but shrieked.

"I think it's perfectly my place, as I can't let you die. Nor can I let that girl experience what it's like to kill who you love the most with your own hands."

Whatever was in his voice struck through her like a slap of cold water. In an instant, her brain snapped together the connections: he had grown so attached to her because she was the first person he had allowed himself to connect to for centuries. Whether people wanted to or not, they subconsciously sought out those connections. To have the strength to deny such an intrinsic need…

"But just because you don't go to her doesn't mean she won't come to you." The bottle was pushed into her hands. "Use it every day. Please."

"Joey wouldn't hurt me," but even the words sounded plastic in her ears. They had come mechanically, as though her brain were intent on following a pre-programmed script.

"The monster within her doesn't care." And again she heard the proof in his voice.

Moved by that empty, hollow sound of him, she reached through the dark and found him instantly. She meant to hit him. Meant to smack him hard enough to get this stupid bad dream rolling and away, maybe even convey just how much she suddenly hated him. But her arms failed her and melted on contact with his warmth instead. That lone, violent intention had sucked out all her energy, and a skin pealing howl wound up in her chest, but she clamped her jaws tight against it, alarmed.

To her surprise, he held her up, cradling the back of her head against his shoulder and burying his nose into her hair.

"I'm sorry," he croaked. "This is all my fault."

He couldn't help it, she wanted to tell him. As he said, the monster that possessed them was uncaring to who its victim was. It was the whole reason he had brought her the stupid bottle. But she knew if she opened her mouth, something inhuman would come out and grandpa would definitely hear. Why he hadn't come up already was a mystery.

A soft pressure against her head distracted her from the pain of her cramping throat and a tendril of a whine escaped her. Three more kisses atop her head and down to her face stopped her from allowing herself to believe that she had just been feeling things.

It shook her. Unended her control. Brought the denial charging towards the back of her mouth.

As though sensing what she needed, he lifted her up and to the window. The next thing she knew she was outside in the chill, up in the air, held aloft by his huge, tent like wings.

And whether she wanted it to or not, the howl came, along with her angry tears. If he wanted to help, if he was going to be so tender as to kiss her, he should take her to Joey, not let her humiliate herself by falling apart at the seams before verifying there really was nothing she could do—that he was even telling the _stupid_ freaking truth. And dare he care to be comforting, he should have given her hope, not apologize. Apologies did nothing.

But, instead, he just flew her above the skyline and let her cry.


	22. Newborn

**For Jilnauchtagen, since we had a deal that if she updated before the usual weekly Monday update (aka, an extra update), I would do an extra update for this story. If you want a chapter sooner, nag her, not me. I'm a barf writer. ^.^ Speed is probably the only thing I have on my side at this point.**

 **Though, recently...I did get a job, but then I had a talk with my husband about how it would be and how I was dealing with it (basically freaking out) and we realized my...anxiety disorder and how seriously I took my job being a mom for my son and a homemaker would make me having a job like the one I had gotten, well, harmful for our family and...do you have any idea how incapacitated that makes me feel? Like I'm handicapped and he, as the spouse who is able to make money, has to care for me. Yeah I'm a stinking good housewife (cook and clean and sort and secretary the bills an budget like a pro), yeah I love being a mom, and yeah he told me he wants me to focus on my writing, but what? What good is any of it if we end up in debt because we can't afford to live on our own and end up getting passed around from family member to family member like the cursed charity case?**

 **I would give up my writing and painting in a heartbeat if it meant my family could have a place we could call home-our home. It could be a trailer, it could be a one room shack, I've worked with smaller before. But...**

 **Guys...he said he can't let me give up on my art. When he said that, I realized I had given up on myself. I gave up when I stopped writing query letters. I gave up when I stopped bothering with editing the books I do have. I gave up any dream of my degree and talents ever being a help to my family. I saw myself as useless and pointless, but he, who is working ten hours a day five days a week and more if he can, doesn't. Even while we're struggling in living in a room in my grandma's basement, he still doesn't think I'm useless...and he still believes in me.**

 **...How?**

Chapter 21

Joey wasn't a stranger to pain. Being a lone girl in a gang, she had been expected to be even tougher than the boys. They could swear and shout all they wanted to. But she had to grit her teeth, take care of business, and keep walking.

This was another creature, though. It wasn't pain, it was a tidal wave that crashed into her third world country coasts, tearing at the membranes of her insides, stripped each cell apart, then set on fire every little screaming person that could even feel pain and kept them alive to feel more.

She didn't even realize she was Joey or a lone body or anything other than sheer agony until she felt herself throw up what had to be her stomach itself. Slimy, thick, meat like, it clogged her throat. She couldn't breathe.

Her body somehow found the care for oxygen among all that pain, and she rediscovered mouth, gasping for the air. She tried to swallow back down her stomach, tried to bite through it, but her teeth cut through nothing and her throat came back dry and empty.

 _Why can't I breathe?_ She heaved again, desperate for it, screaming all the while.

Ice claws clamped over the back of her neck and pulled her head back from…where? It shook her and stuffed something just as cold to her face. She recoiled, screaming, though she couldn't hear it. Hearing just wasn't important. Not when you're dying.

But she could…she could…

She opened her mouth wider, trying to get her tongue past the disgusting cold thing. Her aching, screaming mouth.

Air. She could taste it.

But the cold thing was in the way.

Using her matted, useless coast arms that had been ravaged by natural disaster, she beat back the cold and lunged at the air with every fiber of her dying, flaming being.

Her teeth broke through the surface of the water. Glorious, glorious oxygen. Air flooded down her throat, settling her stomach back where it had come from. The waters receded from her flooded land. The fires died. The little people of her being calmed as their bodies were set back on the shore. Her insides fell into place. Wonderfully normal, friendly pain settled in, even drawing back enough to reveal her aching, but still whole, body. She could feel again. Breathe again, as she then realized that oxygen was actually coming down her throat in between gulps of whatever she suckled to.

Slowly, she began to hear.

"You're turning white. Just push her away long enough to get a drink."

"I told you to stay put."

"Look, I can leave the room so she can't get to me—"

"Just hold on. I think she's finishing up."

"How can you even tell?"

"I just can."

The words vibrated whatever her mouth had suctioned to, tickling her lips. She stopped mid-drag, startled.

"See?" Again, it tickled.

The thing she was drinking was talking.

Alarmed, she unstuck her jaws and pulled away, her insides rolling. The sleeping agony within her stirred, demanding she go back or face the consequences.

But she started to figure out more. The ground she was on was soft, terribly soft—that was a blanket. A bed? And it was dark—no, her eyes were closed. Why were they closed? Where was she? What was that amazing smell? When had a giant taken up the beating of her heart by pounding against her rib cage? Why did she hurt so much? Where had she been before? Who was she?

Her stomach clenched and reached up. It was going to come out. Come out and strangle her again for oxygen even as it forced her to vomit out all her organs.

Panic got to her throat first. She gasped, reached for the emptiness above her. The world was ending—she was ending—the thing she was drinking from _talked_ —

"It's okay! It's okay! Here, Joey, here."

The ice claws scooped about her back this time and brought her forward. They pushed her mouth back to the not-oxygen, back to the vibrating thing.

"Wait!" said another voice, a higher voice, not connected to the one that vibrated.

A familiar cold thing pressed against the side of her head. She cringed from it, but the ice claws kept her to the not-oxygen until her body gave her no choice but to open her mouth and bite into the surface again.

Eventually, the cold thing was taken away and she was left in peace.

"We should probably be quiet until she finishes," rumbled against her lips.

"Fine, but keep drinking yourself."

"I don't think she likes it."

"Drink the damn blood."

"Language, Moki."

Blessed quiet ensued and her frazzled panic calmed. No more rumbles tickled her mouth and she drifted off. As her weary, war torn self relaxed, more oxygen than the warm not-oxygen went down her throat. Then the darkness came and took all the remaining pain away, leaving her to drift.

Then she was awake.

 _It must be day,_ she thought, as the familiar rich-ass canopy and bedroom were filled with a gentle light. But as she looked to the window to see just what time of day it was, not only did she find the curtains closed (so where was the light coming from), but a sleeping, very pale Kaiba face only inches away.

She blinked several times. He smelled wonderful. Like he had slathered himself in warm icing and cinnamon before coming to bed.

Kaiba. In the same bed as her. Under the covers. There was even an arm around her waist.

" _What the hell!_ "

She pushed off hard—and somehow ended up on the floor covered in flyaway blankets.

 _Really slippery sheets?_ She thought.

A groan came from the other side of the bed.

"Damn it, Wheeler, did you have to push so hard?"

"Why am I in your house? _Why are you sleeping with me?"_

"It wasn't really my choice. You didn't let go until three in the afternoon, and I was exhausted. Your fault too."

"Like hell! I don't drink, I don't do no drugs, and I don't recall…" she stopped with a snap of a jaw, even as her last memory floated up. She had been walking home. Thinking about how she wanted to punch her math teacher out. Then some weirdo white haired guy with freaky eyes had stepped in front of her…

She put a hand to her neck, but there was nothing there. Just smooth skin.

"You stalker," she said.

"Excuse me?" said the irritable Kaiba.

"I got attacked by some albino nutter and the only way you could have found me—either you're a stalker or you like cheap whores, pick the evil."

"Neither." He had appeared at her head and was looking down at her. Joey couldn't help but be impressed by how outrageous his height seemed from down on the floor. Yeah, the dude was tall, but this was just fantastic. "How are you feeling?"

She opened her mouth to say something smart alecky and crude, probably about how, from her vantage point, she could see his lack of morning wood, but stopped on spying red stains along the collar of his white shirt.

For some reason, it made her think of oxygen. Her throat started to feel tight. She thought she could taste it again—the not-oxygen.

"Seto Kaiba, why do I suddenly want to lick you for no damn reason?"

He snorted. "I'm flattered. Can you stand?"

"Don't be. It's entirely non-sexual, it's…" Her blood went cold.

So fast her head spun, she shot up and stuffed several fingers into her mouth. Even as she felt her sharper canines cutting across her careless fingers, drawing blood, she began to choke. It was getting hard to breathe again. The room had become far too bright. Kaiba smelled far too damn good, and not the way a man should smell to a girl, but in a way that made her stomach cramp and ache and her throat go dry.

Seto crouched down, pulling her hands from her mouth. "Calm down."

"I have teeth, I have—what's happened—"

"Yes, you've changed. You're like me now, it sucks, you're whole life is screwed, you can come to grips with it later. Calm down."

She closed her eyes and screwed up her face. "I can't! I-I-I want to eat you! Like some sort of—aahhhhHHHH!"

"Josephine—"

"Stop it! Stop!"

"I'm not doing anything."

"Ahhhh—hhann…" her throat cut her off, squeezing up tight as a fist. She opened her mouth like a fish, gulping.

Kaiba swore and took a fistful of her hair at the back of her head. Even as she recognized the touch of the ice claws, though this time not so cold and not so claw-like, he pressed her face to the side of his neck. She struggled against him, but his strength easily overwhelmed her and her consciousness was already spotting with black for want for air—and the not-air.

Without meaning to, in her flailing, her mouth bit down.

Warm, delicious, pure oxygen spilled across her tongue. She stopped fighting and instead clung to him, unable to help herself from drawing in deep. It was water, air, and ambrosia in one.

It didn't taste like blood at all.

She tried to pull away, but his hand clamped down on her head.

"Listen," he said. "You need to work on staying calm. I know what the change is like on the body, and it will go a lot easier and you'll need a lot less blood if you just keep relaxed, understand? Or do you like sucking on my neck like a parasite in order to breathe?"

 _Yes_ , said her strange, aching body. But she reached behind her head and pulled back his hand by her nails. She didn't miss how easily they drew blood or the way her knuckles cracked with alien strength.

"Only because you keep forcing me too," she snarled and forced herself back from licking the blood now trickling from the little tears her fangs had made. "I didn't ask you to help me."

"Oh? Would you have liked to wake up with a few dead bodies around you instead?"

She stiffened. "You, good sir, are an asshole. What kind of bedside manner is that?"

"The kind to wake up stupid blonde vampires to reality. Now, you're going to get back into that bed and rest."

"Oo, scary daddy. Better do as I'm told—pfft, screw you."

"I'm not telling." His hands clamped hard on her arms, pinning them to her side. In an amazing feet of strength and dexterity, he both stood and lifted her bodily into the bed without once needing to bend or pause.

To her horror, the moment her back met that glorious softness, she felt her body go heavy and melty. It was as though the bed had become some sort of energy sponge.

"Damn it, what did you do to make me so sleepy? Drug your own blood?"

"It's you're new body. You're still changing."

"Lovely. Get me some real people to bite next time, will ya?"

The look on his face.

Sudden sleepiness and panic aside, Joey roared with laughter. It cracked something in her, though, and it peeled into a hysteric note.

When Seto's hand touched her cheek there were tears. The gentle press of his fingertips drew her last laugh into a half-smothered sob.

"I can't see Yugi again, can I?" she managed to gasp.

"Just go to sleep," he said.

And as though it had been waiting for her all along, she closed her eyes and slipped back into unconsciousness.


	23. Sweet Surrender

**Thank you. :) For your reviews. And your encouragement. And for the knocks upside the head. I've sort of been renewed? Reborn? I'm going to keep working hard on my art so I can tell the story the others need to hear. Oh yeah, and paint. XD But as you've all seen, I'm more heavily a writer than a painter. A college degree can do that.**

Chapter 22

Atem brushed his fingers across a scattering of the sleeping girl's hair. He couldn't recall the last time he had found someone so precious that just a few strands of their hair filled him with wonder. It had kept him up long after he had tucked an unconscious and exhausted Yugi into her bed and sat down next to her bed, despite the shouting in his head to leave now and never return. The first rays of morning sun had lulled him into a few hours of sleep, but when he woke up she was still there, just as he had left her, closed eyelids still swollen and shiny.

He should have left then. He had meant for her hair to be his last touch of her. But as he thought that he should remember this, as it would be the last he'd feel or see of her, he lingered. Longer and longer.

When her amethyst eyes finally opened, he knew he had lost his last chance to do the right thing.

But he just…couldn't help it. He was trapped. Chained. It was almost as though he had lost all free will to the heart trembling in agony at the thought of leaving. The last week without her had been so empty and numb.

"This can't be happening to me," he whispered.

"What?" asked Yugi drowsily. Her voice was still hoarse from sobbing.

He stared into her eyes, wondering if he dared to tell her. Wondering if it even mattered.

"You're alarm went off an hour ago," he said, looking away.

"It's Saturday. I don't have school."

"Oh. Huh. Never really paid much attention to schools."

"Um, I don't mean to sound rude, but—"

"Don't worry, I'm leaving." But even then, he couldn't bring himself to move—to just stand and walk out of the house. Horrified, he gave the only excuse he could think of, "Or, I would be, if I had my sunglasses. I hadn't planned on staying this long at all." That didn't really get him out. "I wanted to make sure you'd be okay."

She blinked at him with those poor, swollen eyes and stretched. There was even a delicate sort of vulnerability to the way she did that. Then she just sat there, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, probably not even aware of the almost imperceptible, adorable, sleepy grunts and sighs she made as she did so.

"Atem?"

He stiffened. "Yes?"

"What am I to you?"

He blinked hard at that. His heart sped up a notch. "You mean as a friend or…not?"

She set her hands into the pool of comforter in her lap. The fluff nearly swallowed those tiny, delicate things whole. "Am I food to you? An experiment? A tool? Some sort of…hope for salvation? Has everything you've done up to this point just to manipulate me or something? I'm sorry, I'm not very good at being indirect or believing someone is lying, even if I'm certain they are."

The uncomfortable clench about his chest was worse than the apprehension of her suspecting his affections had.

"Yugi," he started, then swallowed, his mouth dry but his hands wet. He didn't want her to think poorly of him. He didn't want to hurt her. But wouldn't it be better if she didn't know?

But why? If he knew of his adoration, or even a fragment of the emptiness he had become without her, what would it hurt? It wasn't like she could return his affections—he, the sadistic kidnapper who brought about the change of her best friend. But, if, by some sick twist of fate—or curse of heaven—she did feel the same way—

But she couldn't. They had only known each other for, what, little over a week? And if so, why did he feel so strongly? It had to be just his lonely human heart overcompensating for all the time he had kept himself at a distance.

He didn't notice when Yugi swung her legs around and reached for him. When her fingers brushed his cheek, he jumped back. Her brow how puckered with concern.

"What are you so afraid of? It's not like what I think of you could matter. I'm never going to see you again once you leave."

"Then why do you want to know? It's not like it matters."

"Because I'll always be wondering, you know?" she cocked her head to the side, which also would have been painfully adorable if it weren't for her puffy eyes. "You have made a rather big impression on my life."

 _What a soft way to say bringer of tragedy_ , he thought, and looked away again. It didn't matter what he said. He knew that. And he had no right to her as it was anyways, so even if she did think well of him, it would never leave anywhere.

He clenched his sweaty hands. The old thirst tickled the back of his throat, and he suddenly remembered the taste of her running down his throat. The barest amount had been enough to satisfy his lust.

"In such a short time…" he stopped, shaking himself. "I mean, maybe it's because I've kept myself from making any connections for so long, maybe I'm just, you know, lonely," that wasn't exactly going to be flattering to her. "Not that…" he sighed, pained, and whimpered a low, tiny, "Yugi."

She gently kicked her feet, brushing her toes against his folded legs. It sent hot prickles shooting up his spine.

"I love you," he blurted. "This past week without you has been so…just empty and numb, until it wasn't and I was remembering your face and the way you watched me carefully when we talked, your kindness, that little smile you gave me when you thought you'd caught some imposter playing pranks in the alley, your smell—" he snapped his jaws shut hard. Smell was taking it too far. She didn't need to know how…appetizing she was. Or, rather, she didn't need a reminder of it.

Now he had to go.

The mysterious bindings on him snapped and he shot to his feet.

"I'm sorry—for everything. I promise you'll never have to see me again."

He strode for the window and threw open the blinds like the idiot he was. When the bright noonday sun proceeded to sear through his eyes and skull, he stumbled back, cursing himself for having forgotten. And since the universe had had enough of his dignity, his heel snagged on something and threw him down hard on his butt—which was stabbed by something blocky and square and painful. He yelped, leaping to the side, just to hit a bookcase. Books, movies, and various decorative paraphernalia rained down on his belligerent head.

Only once he was sure the last of it had fallen did he allow himself a miserable groan.

Yugi burst into laughter. It was the first time he had heard her laugh, and the sound was all peels of sweetness and bells. In an instant he was skyhigh. Suddenly, the humiliation was worth it.

But it didn't last long. Even as she caught her breath, he knew he really did have to leave now.

As he reached for the door, Yugi jumped off her bed and caught his wrist.

"You can't go out now," she said through a smile—which made his head whirl. "I don't have any sunglasses you can use. You'll just bump around until you're hit by a car."

"I can find my way to an alley well enough," he grumbled.

"Then you might as well hide out here. It isn't like you're getting thristy, are you?"

No. Strange thing was, he had found himself less thirsty than ever.

Yugi cocked her head to the side. "What's that look on your face?"

"Just…" He traced her violet eyes, her petite mouth, her pale, soft face. If he mentioned again how he thought her blood was curing his vampirism, might she sacrifice herself for Joey's sake? There really was no telling what exactly her blood was doing, or if it would even effect another vampire like it had him. He, after all, was rather unique.

But as Yugi's small mouth started in a little 'o' and her eyes widened, the terrified thought occurred to him that she had already thought of it.

"Has my blood been…changing you? More?" she asked.

His heart sunk. He should lie. But if it was…what would happen if he just got a taste more…?

"Nothing more than usual," he said quietly.

"Well, if you're not getting thirsty, hang out here for a bit. Grandpa and Mom are off to work anyways. Do you want anything to drink?"

Hearing she was alone didn't help him feel any more comfortable. Because now that the immediate problem was off his hands, he couldn't stop starting at her wrist or her neck.

Yugi noticed.

"You are thirsty?" she said nervously.

"No!" he cried. "No, not at all, I was just…" come up with something! "I…I think I…" Screw it. He sighed and dropped his head in his hands. "Yes, I have been experience a drop in my need for blood. I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you'd run off to Joey and try to cure her before you even knew if it could do such a thing or have the same affect. As a newborn, it doesn't matter how potent your blood is, she will kill you. But…" his heart pounded.

He had told himself not to say these things. But…how could he not. He knew what it would make him sound like; like a manipulative predator trying to get her to offer every last drop of her blood to him. She had already made it very clear where she wanted him in his life, and he had already…damn it, why was it so hard to make decisions when it involved this girl?! It's like every plan or promise he made to himself or anyone else turned to dust in the face of her big, doe-like eyes.

He sank to the floor. He couldn't win. He no longer had any power over himself.

"B-b-but if I…I changed all the way…but I don't know how much blood it would take or even—Yugi, it's impossible that someone's blood could change two hundered years of bodily change. If anything it might kill you, or me, and—"

Yugi dropped between his feet, cutting off his sentence. Without another word, she stretched out her wrist.

"I'll get hauled off to the quarantine in the hospital if anyone sees bitemarks on me. The wrist should be easy enough to cover up."

He started at her. "Yugi…you don't know if this will even do anything. You're asking me to hurt you."

"But you said you loved me, didn't you?" she smiled, and he felt his will wobble and snap. "You'll take care of me. Just like you did last time."

He took up her delicate, tiny wrist. Everything inside him was aching.

"For Joey," he said weakly, trying to calm his own horror and guilt.

"And for you," she said.

At those words, he stopped. His chin was trembling. After blinking furiously, he leaned down. He felt her tense for the pain, but he didn't bite her right away. Rather, he kissed her wrist, then her palms.

"Even if this doesn't work," he whispered. "I will do whatever you say. I am your slave."

She flinched. "Um, you don't have to take it that far."

"But it's all I'm worthy for." He ran the side of his nose on her forearm, breathing in her heavenly butterscotch and lavender. "I give up. I can't leave you. Against all my better judgment. And for risking your life and taking your blood, a slave is all I am worthy for. I will do anything you desire, obtain anything you wish, be your tool, your servant."

"Atem—"

He bit in.

Yugi tried to hold back a squawk of pain and jerked. He held to her arm, though, intent on not accidentally tearing the holes he had made bigger than he had to be. He tried stroking it with his thumbs to calm her, even as he lost most of his mind to the heaven slipping across his tongue.

This was the taste of her. In a strange way, with her blood inside him, they were one—as close as they would ever get.

Since he hadn't been all that thirsty to begin with, he became satiated within a minute. He held his thumb down on the puncture wounds as he lifted his mouth. Before pulling away, he kissed her hand again.

"Atem…" she murmured.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm not even light headed or anything. Hold on, I'll take care of it. I know where the first-aid is."

He prepared himself to catch her if he had to, but she got up and was out without any problems. He stared at the spot on the door where she had disappeared before collapsing onto his side, his eyes gone heavy. It was the drowsiness brought on by a good feast. His body felt warm, almost hot, and his thoughts didn't want to focus on anything but the euphoric contentment of being surrounded by Yugi's smell and presence.

That's right. He couldn't win. Giving up never felt so good.

"Atem?"

"I'm alright, little one. Just a bit tired. I usually sleep in the day."

"You can lay on my bed if you want. The floor can't be too comfy."

He heard the rip of medical tape and shot up. She had the end of the tape in her mouth and was trying to unpeel it from itself from where she had taped it off, all while holding guaze to her arm.

"Let me," he took them from her.

"Thanks."

He did quick work of her arm, made sure it wasn't too tight, even as he felt himself wobble in place.

"Atem? Are you really alright? You're all…flushed."

He smiled at her. "Wonderful. I'm with you."

She blushed bright red, and he found it unbearably endearing. "Look, Atem, about all that slave stuff, you can't be serious."

"Whether you accept it or not, it's what it is," he leaned forward unconsciously. Oh, if he could just nestle his face in her humble breasts. So soft and close to her heart.

She caught his shoulders. The stop in the momentum made him slump. His dizzying thoughts were sinking, along with the brightness of her bedroom.

"Atem? Atem!"

He'd find her jewels. He'd give her a house—a mansion—a palace. Any luxury she required. Travel the world. Tend to her every need. He was tired of his own agency anyways. It wasn't like it did him any good when the monster took control—which was when he wanted it the most.

That was right. He was switching over masters. Yugi was his master now.

Sweet surrender.

The last thing he was aware of was her candy-like scent.


	24. Waking Dragon

**You didn't think I'd forget to update on Christmas of all days, did you? :P**

 **MERRY CHRISTMAS!**

Chapter 23

Seto was so caught up in standing vigil at Joey's bedside, it was midnight before he noticed who was missing.

Careful to not jostle the sleeping girl on his lap, he leaned across the small pile of empty plastic blood bags to reach his cell phone on the nightstand. Even that little movement made his head spin and his stomach turn. His body wasn't taking too kindly to having his blood drained one too many times, and was unhappily doing its best to work with the cold blood he'd stuffed down his throat.

He fell back on the pillows to stop the spinning and put the phone to his ear.

Mokuba picked up after the second ring.

"You seen Atem yet?" his little brother asked.

"Just calling to ask."

"You don't sound good. Haven't you gotten her to take the bags yet?"

"She tried and threw it back up." He could still smell the wasted blood sinking into the carpet.

"Threw it back up? How is that even possible? When I sucked your blood as a vampire, that's what made me throw up. Tasted like rotten fruit."

Seto grunted. He hadn't bothered to try vampiric blood, but it had never sounded appetizing for some reason.

"Something's weird with her," he agreed. "You call him?"

"Well, yeah, but it's his house number. He hasn't picked up."

"Do you know what he was planning on doing tonight?"

Mokuba snorted. "Like I'd care. As long as he gives you what you want, he could jump off a cliff, for all I care."

Not that Seto felt much different, it was still a bit of a shock to hear that from his little brother. He was still a kid, after all. Life hadn't had a chance to teach him real hate yet…had it? Seto didn't like how unsure he suddenly was.

"Hey, how about I take a turn with Joey?"

Seto stiffened. "No."

"How 'bout yes? You sound awful, and the last time I saw you you looked ready to throw up yourself. This can't be good for you. Your body needs to, I don't know, have time to absorb the nutrients or something."

"Note taken."

"…don't make me hit low, Seto."

"I'd like to see you try, squirt. I'm not letting you risk yourself."

"It's hardly a risk. She's starting to stabilize. Besides, I'm a vampire. I can't die just because of a little blood loss. Final warning."

"No." Seto's first instinct was to hang up, but half of him was curious to see what his little brother thought of as a low blow.

"Alright then. You only have yourself to blame." On the other end of the line he heard a long, dramatic sigh. "I took pictures of you and Joey when you both fell asleep. Holding her in your arms. Nuzzling into her hair. Whole nine yards—"

His insides went stiff as boards, which aggravated his stomach. "I can't control what I do when I'm asleep."

"Oh, but she's not going to think of it that way. I mean, teenage girls and love and all that—"

"That isn't funny, Mokuba."

"Then I could take these pictures to someone other than Joey. Say—"

"Don't you dare."

"Oh, but I dare."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing, but at the same time, he totally could, and even felt a weary sort of pride, too tired to muscle up any real fury. He really did feel sick. And the last night had been hell. He'd nearly lost himself to the beast two times. The second time he'd nearly crashed through the bedroom window with Joey still wrapped about his throat like a giant leech.

He ran a hand down his face. "Fine. But I'm not leaving."

"Oh my gawd, at least go pee, you freak."

Seto's mouth twitched. "Take it or leave it"

"Fine! Whatever! Seriously, it's like taking care of a giant toddler."

Hearing that from a twelve year old sort of made the words all the more amusing.

With that, he proceeded with the tricky business of transferring the sleeping Josephine from his legs to the bed. By the time he'd gotten her nestle in, Mokuba had arrived and settled in besides her. Since her snores hadn't even budged in rhythm, he figured he could risk a shower. Perhaps scenting himself with Atem's lemon soap would help Joey focus on the human blood in the bags better.

Stepping into the small room of black tiles, the hit of hot water brought to his attention the aching of his chest that he hadn't noticed. A blotchy, ugly red splotch was all that remained of his heart being torn out, but it was still sensitive to his exhaustion and touch. The hot water felt especially good on it. With a relieved sigh, followed by a nauseous groan, he stuck his phone to a case on the wall built for it and opened up the current news. Might as well get an update on the messed up world while he lathered up. Reading would help him ignore the sting of the lemon.

 _'President Maximillion declaring State of Emergency. Domino City to be quarantined. World Health Organization entreated to announce a pandemic. Military personal already on scene to lock down all exits from Domino. Citizens are asked to remain calm._ '

Even as he read the title and first few sentences of the article, he couldn't help but notice that the text icon had a bold 89, and his voicemail 42. The numbers had never been so high.

"Well, that's all interesting and dandy." He wiped his hand on a nearby towel and brought his finger over the scroll. But he paused and swiped down on the 'x' instead, banishing the article and the notifications altogether. Setting his phone to the side, he ducked his lathered hair into the water, closed his eyes, and sighed. Vampire apocalypse aside, it disturbed him more that he was procrastinating facing the problem. It was unlike him, and Seto knew himself very, very well.

And yet, the girl in his bed seemed more real than all of it.

When he came out, she hadn't moved and Mokuba had his eyes to his tablet. Seto took his sweet time drying and slipping into a clean pair of comfortable clothes.

"Atem?" Seto asked.

"Nope," said his brother.

Seto frowned. He had known the older vampire for such a short time, he didn't know if this was the norm for him. But what he knew of the man, he was reliable, if nothing else. And with all the chaos starting to bubble up from the city at large…

He took out his phone and dialed Atem's number. When it went straight to voicemail, he hesitated. An idea had come to him. Atem had changed so drastically after the shrimp had left.

"What are you doing?" Mokuba asked when Seto came over to nudge Joey. "After all the effort you went through to keep her asleep?"

"This might be important." At a little moan from Joey, Seto said, "Wheeler, what's Yugi's number?"

Joey swiped out a hand towards him, somehow missing the arm that so disturbed her slumber. "Mmmffl, bassst tard."

"It could be important. I think that vampire is at her house."

Just like that, Joey was awake and upright. "Yugi? What happened? Where is she?"

"That's why I need her number. I'm just going to make sure she's alright."

Seto wasn't prepared for the unguarded, wide eyes Joey gave him then. It was as though she had become a little child and he was the kind adult telling her he'd protect her little puppy from the euthanizing vet.

"You'll—you'll tell me—"

"I'll let you know if she's okay," said Seto, far too readily. Where had his self-control gone? When had he become so…soft? "But you have to give me her phone number."

Joey rambled the number off the top of her head and Seto put his phone to his hear.

It run through once and went to voice mail. Feeling Joey's bright, vulnerable gaze on him, he called again.

The phone made a connection. He heard a rustling of fabric and clicking and then a very not feminine, deep voice answered.

" _Kaiba."_

"I feel like I should be disturbed that you recognize my number," said Seto dryly.

" _I would have taught you about that trick if you hadn't professed photographic memory. Why are you calling this phone?"_

Joey must have heard the low timbre of Atem's voice, for any resemblance of vulnerability and cautious trust vanished to be replaced by an all too familiar hardness. At the narrowing of her eyes and the low growl from her chest, Seto realized how attached he had gotten to the weaker part of her.

"I should be asking why you are at that girl's house." Seto turned from Joey, disturbed by his own anger rising up in response to Joey's. "Rule number three, was it? It's good to know you're a hypocrite early on and not later down the line."

" _Well Yugi is…a strange circumstance. I hadn't meant to do this."_

"Uh huh. Well, now that I know you're being a slacker and not dead," Seto hung up. Coiling with a newfound urge to get his hands around the old suckers throat, Seto turned back to the waiting bed.

"Is he seriously ditching for a booty call?" asked Mokuba dryly.

" _What!?_ " Joey screeched. "Where is he? Where is he? I'm gonna get my knee so far up his gonads he'll—"

"Vampires don't have a sex drive," said Seto flatly.

Joey froze mid launch from the bed. "Oh yeah. Forgot." Just to get all fired up again. " _What the hell is he doing at her house?!"_

"Will you stop yelling?" said Mokuba. "And what do you mean don't have a sex drive?"

Now it was Seto and Joey's turn to stare at him. Mokuba blinked. Then a really, really funny look got on his face. The bleaching blue light of his tablet wasn't enough to hide the red flush to his cheeks.

"Oh, yeah, that. Yeah, um. Yeah, Joe, no booty call. Just me being weird."

Seto wasn't an idiot. He may have skipped childhood, but he hadn't forgotten what it was like to hit puberty. Mokuba had something.

But that would have to be a subject to broach on later, as just then his phone shrilled out with Yugi's number displayed on the screen.

"Yeah?" he answered.

" _Yugi's been taken by the old one."_

At the memory of the blood black eyes, Seto felt himself go cold.

Joey, still bouncing from foot to foot in anticipation of a vampire hunt, looked a Seto, her face going parchment pale.

"Yugi?" and there was the vulnerable side again, the little child hoping to be saved.

"How do you know this?" he asked quickly.

" _Her scent leads outside her door and vanishes with his. I'm going after him. I'll have Yugi's phone, track that_."

"Who said I was your back up?"

" _Don't give me your flack, boy, you threw yourself into what I do and now you're a part of it._ " There was a loud whooshing of air as Atem took flight that nearly covered up his next words. " _Either come or Joey's friend dies."_

And before Seto could snap back at Atem's gross error in thinking he'd ever care about anybody who he'd met only a week or so ago, the line went dead and Seto pulled away scowling.

"Yugi?" squeaked Joey again.

He loathed how that affected him.

"I'm going out to…find Yugi," he said to Joey hesitantly. "Mokuba, keep an eye on her until I get back."

Mokuba dropped his tablet face down. "Hold on, you're going without me?"

"Wheeler's new, she could—"

"Like hell I'm staying!" again Joey's mood changed with break neck speed from weak and small to blood-burning, war-hungry fury. "She's in trouble, isn't she? Why else would Super Goth call back?"

Seto hardened. He was not having this conversation.

"I'm coming," said Mokuba, already hoping off the bed.

"Stay."

"You can't make me—"

"This isn't a debate, Mokuba—"

"You're not my dad, you're my brother! That means I have every bit the same right to watch out for you as you do me!"

"And like hell I have any reason to do what you say!" roared Joey. "So tell me where she is already, or I'll…I'll…I'll break down your house!"

Irate as he was, Seto couldn't help smirking at that. "Tear down my house? All fifteen thousand square feet?"

The next second, Seto wished he hadn't bated her, though there had been no way he could have known. For with a whistling suck of breath through her nostrils, Joey whirled her fist around and snapped the nearest hardwood bedpost nearest to her. A very thick, expensive bed post. And with the ease of one who throws their arm through a curtain of tissue paper. The whole bed lunged from the hit, thudding with a loud bang.

Even Mokuba stared. Yeah, him and Seto had become stronger as vampires, but not until at least a week after the change when they had gotten out of the swing of bloodlust and sleeping. And even then not with the fleshy bit of their forearm and so easily.

"I'm coming," said Joey.

Seto just blinked.

"Well," said Mokuba with another funny smile. "I guess we know what your vamp talent is."


	25. In the Dark

**Had the wonderful pleasure of being alone in the house with a copy of Yugioh: Dark Side of Dimensions, so I could scream and cackle and slap my face all I wanted without witnesses. 3 'Twas glorious.**

Chapter 24

The man who met her when she walked out her home to get the mail had bone white hair, though what she could see of his face past the black sunglasses was ivory smooth and unwrinkled. Even before she caught the whiff of rust she knew what he was.

His hands reached out.

Then she opened her eyes to darkness, lost as to how she had come there, her wrist throbbing dully where Atem had bitten. Though she laid on something soft and there was a blanket over her, she shivered hard, and the air was rank with mothballs and rats. She sat up, heart in her throat, and felt around, but her hands hit walls, and finally, a door. A closet. Or a cell, of some sorts.

Even as the fear drained her mouth and spiked her gut painfully, a part of her had known something like this would have happened eventually. Even if her blood hadn't meant anything.

The door wouldn't move in or out, and she could find no door handle. The foam pad that made the floor of the closet and her new bed covered the crack beneath the door, and even when she pulled it away, no light shone through. Thus, she wrapped herself up tight in the musty blanket and ducked her head into her arms. Only then did she try to comprehend the chill that had settled within her.

Horrible things were about to happen. She'd most likely die. And, as far as she could tell, there was nothing she could do about it.

And yet, all she could register was that chill within her, that burned her insides with the cold thereof, and a distance, shrill horror in the back of her mind.

The door hinges creaked and a draft of new hair brushed through to her. She jerked up, but could see nothing still. It was as dark outside the door as it was inside.

A cold hand cupped her face.

"Pity you can't be changed. Such pretty eyes."

The unfamiliar baritone sent shivers down her back. The thought of running didn't even occur to her, not in such blinding darkness.

She smelled rust again.

"Hungry? Need a bathroom break?"

There was no kindness in that voice. In fact, there was hardly any emotion at all.

Yugi didn't trust herself to speak.

Whoever held her face sighed short and quick and his hand moved from her chin to grip the side of her throat.

The next thing she knew, a wet mouth mashed against the side of her neck and pain exploded. She cried out and jerked away, but his arms went around her like barrel bands, hard as stone and as cold as well. A great mass of scratch hair pooled about her back and face, getting into her mouth and eyes, and rank with the smell of rust and salt.

Her head spun, brightening the darkness with runs of gray stars and streams. Her muscles weakened and she fell. The vampire followed to become a hard, heavy, unyielding mass upon her.

Only a minute or so later, though, he pulled back, unhinging his teeth from her artery with a sharp smack of pain and cold. Something smooth and taut wrapped about her neck, only loose enough to allow her to breathe.

"No doubt about it, you're one of them," said the voice, ringing with satisfaction. "Now, I think it goes without saying that if you want to stay alive and in relative comfort, you'll be as meek as a lamb and do as I say. Get up."

His weight lifted, but he didn't give her the chance to even see if she could stand. A claw like hand clamped about her forearm and hoisted her to her feet. Her side slammed into the side of the closet-like cell as her ears rung and her consciousness warbled. Whatever he said next she didn't hear, but the arm yanked her forward, where an arm hooked about her stomach as her knees gave way. As her vision cleared, she found herself being painfully carried about her middle by an arm and held to a man's side. His black steel-toe shoes clomped some inches from her dangling fingertips. Light.

The black boots stepped onto dirty white tiles and the dim light became blinding. He dropped her onto the tiles.

"Take care of yourself," he said gruffly. A door closed, pushing her rump in the last few inches.

She only allowed herself a few seconds to feel the icy tiles before slowly sitting up, squinting. A stained toilet in one corner. A ceramic sink half peeled from the wall beside it. A lone, naked shower head hanging above it all. The room was no more bigger than the closet she had just left.

Shaking so hard she feared all her joints would simply snap, Yugi pulled herself to her feet with the help of the stained toilet and, telling herself not to think about the insides, 'took care of business,' then numbly washed her hands in the cold sink until the vampire opened the door and yanked her back outside into the dim lighting. Yugi could just make out a distant wall of cinderblock and riveted steel before he yanked open a door nearby and threw her inside. She saw what her hands had told her before. A door with a steel handle on the outside and steel door jam, but nothing inside.

"There will be food, so no whining," said the vampire.

She turned around just in time to see his bone white hair and face. Then the door slammed close with a thrum of metal and the door jam was pushed into place.

 _His eyes_ she thought, and even as she did the painful cold shuddered and something strangling and acidic clawed up her throat. _They were black. No white, just black and red and black._

Then the pain of the bites fell away to the blinding reality of her situation and a sudden need for air.


	26. Humor the Newborn

**This is the second chapter I've updated today, so make sure you don't miss reading the chapter before this one.**

Chapter 25

Joey woke up inside a helicopter with her mouth on Mokuba's wrist. She snapped her head back with an apoplectic "pop!"

"How the—what the—Mokuba, I didn't mean—"

"I know! It's fine, Joey, really, it's just the stage your in."

Joey scrunch up her nose. "You make it sound like puberty. Ugh, ick, uck—"

Mokuba's eyes widened and his brow furrowed. "Do I really taste that gross?"

"It ain't a matter of taste, it's the fact that I woke up munching on a kid. Ugh, I'm like a freaking cannibalistic pedophile now." Joey ran her hands down her face, still unused to the feel of longer canines in her mouth, or the moist taste of 'not-oxygen' that should taste like blood, but didn't.

It took her another second or so to remember why she was in a helicopter in the first place. Then she was on her feet, forcing back the perpetual cloak of sleepiness she had yet to shake off.

"Yugi!"

"Shut up, Mutt, we're still trying to figure that out," said a familiar asshole from the front, hidden from view by the back wall of the cockpit.

"Why don't you just go all the way and call me a bitch already so I can punch you?"

"Because then I'd have to find another source of blood you won't vomit, because I will have broken all the bones in your body…on accident."

"No wonder you're still single. Probably still a virgin to boot, jackass." Joey gave Mokuba a flabbergasted look. "You're okay with him talking to women like that?"

"It's mostly just you," he said, with an odd twitch to his mouth.

That did it. "You say'n he thinks I ain't no girl!? Get over here, bastard! Let's see who breaks who!"

Two small hands on the back of her shirt shoved her back down onto her rump. Super strength gave her nothing against being pulled off balance. And also the perpetual film of fatigue.

"Seeing as I'm the only reason you're alive and not a murderer," said Seto, sitting up with a creak of upholstery and copter joints. "You should be bowing in reverence, not barking empty threats."

He stepped around, and Joey got full view of the black, belted, armed wonder of man specimen. She almost didn't recognize the flannel clad man she had been more or less hooked to for the past groggy who knows how long. On the next thought though, she couldn't believe she had ever seen Kaiba not being this slim, tall, knife-like figure in black. His blue eyes glowed a strange violet through the dark that his thick brown hair brushed across as he ducked down to them.

An old part of her gave a low whistle. No wonder he smelled like food. He looked almost good enough to _be_ food.

"The sooner I can kill Atem, the better."

Joey hmmphed. "Be my guest. So how we finding Yug?"

"By smell," said Seto, who pulled up Mokuba's wrist that Joey had bitten. Joey felt a rush of unbidden fear, but the elder Kaiba seemed satisfied with what he saw and dropped it. "The GPS tracking only gives us a general area, and we won't be wandering around like idiots to get there. The thing could smell us before we'd even see him. Best let Atem distract him first." He glanced down at Joey. "How's the rash?"

She flushed. "Jee, make it sound butt hives I got from a diaper. I hardly even notice it after a nap." The weird, scentless shampoo Seto had made her bathe in—right there while she was butt naked the entire time, God damn his soul to hell—had stung like acid, despite Mokuba's reassurance that it would only sting at first. Either Joey had sensitive skin, or newborn vampires in general did.

As though doubting her claim, Seto suddenly ducked forward and took a long sniff. Joey arched back.

"Excuse me?"

"It seems to be working," he said. "I can't smell you."

"You could have asked me," said Mokuba wryly, who practically had Joey in his lap at this point.

"Or, hey, me, the actual girl you're sniff'n," said Joey, irritated. "And why didn't I get a cool outfit like yours?" All Joey wore were a set of Seto's black sweats and a black T-shirt.

"Because that takes time and the world doesn't revolve around you."

"Yeah, because it's too busy revolving around you."

Mokuba let his head fall back and sighed. "You best be going, Seto."

Seto didn't need to be told twice. He already had his hand to the door, and at Mokuba's word he slid open the side of the helicopter and stepped out.

"Whoa, hold on—"

Mokuba caught Joey's wrist. "We're backup, Joey. Stay."

"No way! Yugi—"

"Will have a better chance of surviving without your nosey bumbling about," said Seto fiercely, twisting around to aim those ice-knife eyes at Joey. "I'm quieter, older, faster, and more trained. I'll let Mokuba know if we need your help."

Then Joey blinked and he was gone. Faster indeed.

"How'd he—where'd he—"

"My brother's always been a quick learner," said Mokuba with a proud smile.

"Aren't we suppose to be as fast? I mean, I still gotta have some human blood in me or something, right?"

Mokuba gave Joey an odd look. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Joey decided not to mention that she had actually read that from the third book of the Twilight series and said instead, "What if he doesn't have the time to radio us in?"

"Seto's always been good at foreseeing things and planning ahead. I doubt that'll happen."

"Right…"

Joey didn't know what else to say to that. Nor had she any idea what to do about the uneasiness within her. Yugi was in trouble. In the claws of death itself, even. How could anyone, let alone herself, expect Joey to stay put and do nothing? But it wasn't like she could just run out there. She didn't know how much Yugi's scent would have changed with her super senses, let alone how to get started with finding said scent. Even as Joey sat there, staring out the open door of the helicopter, strange scent after strange scent blew in, making her head spin. And as it spun, so did her grogginess return, bringing with it the plaguing sense that her throat was closing up without Mokuba's or Seto's blood running down it.

And the wait gave her too much time to think about it.

"Joey?" Mokuba asked after some time.

Joey looked at him, unsure of what might happen if she exposed her burning mouth to the air. She had pulled her legs in tight and had her nails digging into her wrists where the kid couldn't see.

"Are you thirsty again?"

Joey forced out a snort. "No."

"I know you're lying."

"Yeah right."

"It's in your eyes," said the kid, even as he lifted up his wrist, which had already healed from Joey's bite. "Even now, they kind of shine. It looks nice with the brown of your eyes. Like sunshine through chocolate."

Despite the proffered wrist, Joey scooted back. "I don't feel like it. Besides, I'll just fall asleep."

"That's okay. I'll wake you up when we have to go."

"We won't have the time," said Joey, squeezing so hard she felt her nails break through skin and down to tendon. It hurt, made her flinch, even as the thought occurred to her that with her strength she could tear apart her own body, if she wanted to. But even as she tried to squeeze deeper through the pain, her fingers seized up and the sense of choking and drowning rushed down on her.

"Frick, what are you doing?"

Before Joey could react, Mokuba had one of her wrists out. Joey yanked it back, smearing blood on Mokuba's fingertips.

"I'm just freaked out, okay?"

"So you're tearing your wrists apart? God, Joey, we're not going to let anything happen to you or anyone else, okay? You're not a monster."

Joey didn't say anything. That conversation was redundant. Of course she was a monster. They all were.

But the second time Mokuba tugged her wrists free, she didn't fight him. Nor did she fight him when he wrapped his slim arms around her neck and pulled the curve of his neck to her mouth.

"It's okay," he whispered, squeezing. "You won't hurt me, Joey. I've got plenty of blood in the cooler, and you don't drink that much anyways."

"Stop encouraging me to bite you." She forcefully turned her face away. "This is sick. This is wrong. I don't want to be like this."

"I thought you told Seto to get you some real people next time. Is that what you want?"

"Shit, I was joking. Why are you so eager to…to…"

"Because I like you, Joey. And I know he doesn't show it, at least not yet, but my brother really likes you too. You're not alone. We've both went through this and know what it's like."

As her wrists continued to bleed, the gashes Joey had worked into them deep, the need to breathe 'not-oxygen' and quell the fierce destruction beginning to tear at her insides yanked her even harder towards Mokuba's throat.

"Why do I even want your blood anyways? I thought it was just human blood…" it was getting harder to speak. Her fangs had grown heavy in her mouth, and her throat constricted tighter.

"I don't know," said Mokuba.

And without her telling them to, her teeth sunk down, breaking into the smooth, warm skin and bursting not-oxygen across her tongue. She fell against the smaller boy, wrapping her arms around him even as she felt herself drifting off with a sudden exhaustion.

"It's going to be okay, Joey. I'll wake you up the moment he finds Yugi."

But the overwhelming feeling of her uselessness followed her into the darkness.


	27. To Detooth the Shadows

**Here's the first of two chapters you get today because Jilnauchtagen pulled through! Go, give her praises! She worked hard for you! ...though it was all for herself.**

Chapter 26

This time, when Atem gave over his senses to his instincts for the hunt, the sharp thrill of elation only served to tear a wild howl of fury from his throat, earthy, shrill, and animalistic. Every hair on his body went on end. His wings burst forth from his bare back on reflex, throwing bits of his skin to the sky. Scents came to him sharp as neon, and his vision brought the night to brilliant complexity.

There was no sweet freedom in this hunt. No happy abandon. Her missing presence throbbed inside him like a open wound, and the scent of his prey, her captor, imprinted what part of his mind wasn't saved by his meager consciousness.

 _Not her._

Cement cracked beneath his claws. Air sliced open, beaking gravity, lifting him up—out—whiplash speeds. He tasted the vile fume of the city, the musk of flesh, the too-sweet rot, and then, finally, the thread thin rotten-fruit trail of a very, very old vampire.

Without his conscious mind in full control, he had no shadows to hide him, so he'd never flew while hunting. But Yugi threw all his caution to the wind.

 _Not her._

The girl with the big purple eyes and strawberry milkshake across her toes. The girl with the gentle smile that washed over him as sunshine use to do, when it didn't burn his eyes and skin. The girl who took him in and all that he was with those same glittering eyes, accepting, unafraid, curious.

Atem snarled into the wind. The animal within him gave a bestial roar for lavender scented, butterscotch blood.

His consciousness was just enough to register that the scent didn't lead him to the old dock he had found the vampire previously. Rather, it lead him inward, past the too-bright lights and noise of the crowded city, to an old brick and steel factory being renovated into what Atem's instincts didn't care. All they knew was that butterscotch and lavender had twined within the rotten fruit scent.

The thunderous bang of crashing tin roof brought him to his right senses just in time for him to catch himself on the hard, cement floor. A tall carpenters tool box shot away, spraying metal and tools in a raining cacophony of silver. Bits of old stone and metal pattered about him.

"Five stars for dramatic entrance," said a familiar cold, mellow voice. "Very cinematic."

Like a rise of bile, his instincts rolled towards his throat, lengthening his fangs so quick and hot, it hurt. Only his fury kept it from taking over completely.

"You had no reason to take her," he said slowly, but his care was sloppy and he tasted his own blood.

Through the settling dust, across the vast main floor with two walls of wooden framework between them, the ancient vampire's white hair glowed in Atem's heightened vision.

"On the contrary. You just don't know what you've found."

A chill zipped down his neck. Ice gripped his stomach hard, harder still when he traced her sweet scent to the ancient vampire and knew.

The monster within him, fed by his panic and feral ferocity, lurched forward. All coherent thought left him. His wings took flight, his claws took aim, he all but screamed for the other man's blood—

And crashed into a brick wall, his prey having stepped aside.

"Already in that deep, are we?" said the smirk beneath the white hair.

Atem's teeth bit into air as he snatched at him, then lunged, pummeled—

 _Stop!_ He yanked hard on the reins, forcing himself back into the haze of bloodlust. The monster clawed at his body, making him tremble from the effort and want. He had never craved the death of another more than he did then. But he was going to end up dead if he gave in to his senses now. This one was too old, too strong.

He retreated back, back, licking the blood from the inside of his cheek. He'd need shadows to hold him. Take him by surprise.

"What is she, then?" he asked of the smirking white vampire. "If I find you've killed her—"

"You probably thought she was curing you."

Atem went cold. Before he could school the look on his face, the vampire threw his head back and laughed, high and loud. It filled the enormous space of the factory till it sounded as though three white vampires laughed at him, mouth of sharp teeth gleaming like a shark's.

"That look!" he crowed. "Oh, lovely. But you should be thanking me, little Buffy. I saved you from a nasty fate. Well, nasty for you."

"I don't really care, just give her back."

"But you should! The blood of a half-breed can be quite addicting, higher in potency as it is."

His insides cramped harder. Half-breed? But—but those were physically impossible. The disease sucked out any desire and ability for sex whatsoever.

The vampire rolled his head to the side, allowing Atem a full view of his blood-blackened eyes through the white of his hair. Sharp teeth poked out from his too-wide smile. "You would have drunk and drunk, thinking your salvation was at hand as your blood thirst fades, all the while not knowing your body is becoming accustomed to a higher nutrient dense blood. Half-breeds have the uncanny trait of having vampire blood with human flesh. By the time you realize only her blood will satiate you, she'll be dead, and you'll be off on a three month long bloodlust spree as your poor body tries to adjust again to having less nutrients." He rolled his head to the other side, his smile somehow managing to widen even further till his lips all but vanished and both rows of knife like teeth were shone. "And for a poor little hero like yourself, that would have just broken you like bone, wouldn't it? Waking up three months later covered in the blood of hundreds, maybe even thousands, not cured in the least."

Atem found his attempts to grip his concentration on the shadows as he shuddered with horror. He should have known. Like any amount or kind of blood could heal the body built to subsist on it.

"Really, all this malicious intent of yours is misplaced," the vampire continued, sauntering across the stained cement floor towards him. "There is no cure. Trust me, I've had a thousand and a half years to look. Our existence simply epends on the death of others, which isn't much different from any other living thing on this planet. Your fighting of it will only make you miserable. You're life isn't happy, is it?"

Atem took a step back. His fangs had shrunk against his will. Something fragile he hadn't realized he still had cracked and shivered within him.

"That doesn't change that it isn't right," he said lowly, afraid his voice may betray his new vulnerability. He couldn't afford to be overwhelmed by mere words. Yugi was still in danger. "Just give me the girl."

"And let you drink yourself to addiction? I think not. Besides," the shaggy vampire stopped besides one of the few cement support columns and leaned his shoulder against it, still flashing Atem that triumphant, inhuman mouth of teeth. "If used correctly, that blood could be really useful, as I'm sure you've come to realize. Heightened strength, speed, senses. Sounds pretty fun to me. I want it for myself."

With a harsh shake of his head, Atem concentrated, reaching out. It was so hard to find the shadows when his instincts made the room so bright. He shouldn't have punched that hole through the ceiling. Bright moonlight shone in like sun.

The other vampire didn't seem to notice, and went on. "But really, Buffy, you're doing yourself no favors. Take it from me, I've been living for a very, very long time, and there's only two ways which you can go. You can either continue fighting it and try to live with a guilty conscious calling you all sorts of nasty names for something you can't control whatsoever, or," and at this, the lips curled down, and suddenly the man was attempting to look completely human again with a look of plastic-like sympathy. "You can just come to terms with the fact that humans are your food now and give them the respect due to a deer or cow. Trust me, once you decide to work with it, a world of freedom is opened up to you. I can't even remember the last time I experience a lapse in memory due to instincts taking over. It's been years. Centuries." He grinned widely again. "Wouldn't you like that?"

The tendrils Atem had been feeding shot forward. The other vampire's jaw dropped in open surprise as their ends curled about his limbs and neck. Atem twisted his wrist, and the tendrils yanked tight. With another twist and force of effort, the other vampire was forced to his hands and knees.

"What are—what are you doing?"

"Oh, you've never seen this?" said Atem, unable to stop his own smile of triumphant as he crossed the space between them. Quick, now-

"On the contrary."

A needle-like pang flashed across his vision, and he felt his shadows vaporize. Before he could blink, a thin pressure, like a blanket made of lead, shoved at his back and smothered him, wings and all, into the floor.

"You must come from the middle east as well. Hard to tell with all the color gone from your skin. Doesn't help you were always glaring at me like that. We can have such pretty eyes."

Atem struggled to rise, to move, but the blanket smothered him. All he managed to do was slide his face to the side to breath, only to see…nothing. A hollow weight unlike the blanket crawled to his throat. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever experienced true darkness.

"S-s-stop," he gasped.

"Hmm, no."

"I-I can't breathe."

"And you really don't need to. At least, for a few minutes."

Atem sucked, heaved, but his lungs couldn't lift. The darkness. So black. Smothering him, sinking down his throat. The monster within him started to claw for his mind.

"I think you'll find this interesting, since you hunt down your own kind and all, but there's another way to kill other than tearing out their heart and burning. You could try it one day once you get a hand on your shadow powers enough. See, if you can keep oxygen long enough for even the instincts to wear out, you'll kill them. Takes about an hour."

A different darkness pressed in on his mind, sinking, falling. Thoughts fading out.

Consciousness splashed across him like ice water as he took a sudden, sharp intake of breath. His throat burned.

The gentle blues and grays of the moonlight and yellow of the wood frames came back to him. But the shadow remained, transformed from crushing blanket to ropes tied about his wrists and ankles hanging him in the air before his grinning, black-eyed adversary.

"I don't want to destroy you," he said, like a side note. "It'd be such a waste. The wing gift only comes every hundred years or so, and it takes one with strength of mind to figure out the shadow trick."

"Fine, whatever," Atem gasped, hardly aware of himself or the layer of cold sweat soaking his clothes. "Just let her go. Let Yugi go."

"And let one of the newborns get to her? Talk about a waste."

Newborns? Then his scrambled mind clicked it together. "You…you've been changing people on purpose."

This seemed to please him. "Finally, some recognition. Let me tell you, since we're practically brothers at this point. My talent isn't with the shadows, but with smell. Common, yes, but give it a thousand years like I have and you get the amazing ability to smell out which humans are resistant to the change and which are not."

Atem lifted his head to stare at him. "You know how awful this—this existence is, and yet you would—"

"Ah ah! That is strictly up to opinion. You're existence may suck, but mine is rather smashing. See, I've accepted who I've become. You haven't. And I'm practically immortal with eternal youth to boot. Isn't that what most people want?"

Atem felt his lips curl at this. "Fine. Then in a base sense, why increase the competition?"

The other shrugged. "I'm just experimenting. I have the ability, so why not use it? See what God gave it to me for."

Atem spat a bit of blood from his mouth from where his fangs had cut him. He could feel them extending once more, like a viper preparing to inject venom. "What made you so sure God made this?"

"To be honest, I don't really care who or what made this, I'm just doing what I feel like, and you should too."

"It's wrong."

"It's a matter of perspective."

"No, it's wrong," Atem spat, his voice gaining in strength. "You're condemning people to an existence of murder and blood lust. Just because you have the ability to do something does not mean you should!"

But the vampire didn't seem to be paying attention anymore. He had his attention to some other building tool in the construction site, expression bored. He had even started picking his nose with a long pinky nail.

"Give it a few years," he said, pulling his finger back to inspect its findings. "Anyways, I'd rather not have you about harassing me, so just hang there until you're done with your existential crisis, yeah?" He wiped it against his simple, blue and white striped polo shirt.

"You can't leave me up here," said Atem, grabbing at strings. "Once you're concentration breaks, so do the shadows," how he was able to keep him strung up there while talking to him like this was beyond Atem.

"Whatever," he said, pushing off from the column. "Thirsty? I could find you something small, if you like. A toddler. Baby. Real easy to hold up without your hands."

The man's casual, bored way of saying this shocked Atem speechless. Even as the man had said it, images of the little girl and baby boy that lived beneath him, who he had stayed up late making medicines for their various childhood illnesses, flooded his mind, followed by countless other children from his past. Poor children had been in abundance all of Atem's life, and his ability as an herbalist always drew him to them. Kids were always getting sick and scraped up. Such busy little people, keeping him distracted with work to keep their fluttering little lives alit, and therefore, blessing him. They were also the one thing the monster within him respected his subconscious enough not to touch. Never had he woken up with a dead child on his hands.

"Whatever," said the vampire. "Name's Bakura, by the way. If you need anything, shut up, I'm going back to my Call of Duty session. You're freaking immortal, you can wait."


	28. Enter the Parasite

**And here is the second of the two updates I got for you today thanks to Jilnauchtagen!**

Chapter 27

Seto had no idea what that shrimpy blood-sucker had been thinking. Tracking a cell phone wasn't as easy as he thought. Yeah, maybe out in the middle of nowhere or in a small town, but in a city? Where there wasn't just coordinates to worry about, but levels and all the other various signals interfering. Also, the stupid lemon shampoo had the downside of muddling up his sense of smell so he got it in splotches. Though, blame it as much as he wanted, Seto just wasn't use to using his sense of smell. He thought it pointless and appauling to go around remembering people's disgusting scents just so he could stalk them. No. He'd rather use his satellite images, hidden cameras, traffic cams, and cross references to find what he wanted. They were more useful anyways.

But here, he didn't have the time to wait on his technology to kick into gear.

Thus, he found himself with his nose in the air in an attempts to keep it as far from his lemon scentless body as possible. If there was any smell he had unwillingly memorized over the past week, it was the shrimp's.

After five minutes of standing in the darkness, breathing, he cursed.

"Why does the city have to stink so damn much?" For God's sake, he could smell freaking dog urine on the nearest street lamp and some day old funnel cake that had been dropped on the sidewalk and then carried off by pigeons.

He glanced back down at his phone to recheck his coordinates. He was in the right area. This shouldn't be so hard.

Five more minutes of sniffing deep and trying to make out the scents, he gave a quiet roar and dropped his head against the wall of the nearest building. At least the street besides him was mostly empty. It was near a construction site, so there wouldn't be much traffic to be had anyways.

He closed his eyes, trying to think. Even as he did so, a tickling awareness came to his mind.

This is how it had been. Back in the darkness, when he had seen Joey attacked.

Seto dropped to his haunches and hunched his shoulders up, hoping to block out any direct night light with their shadow.

 _What was it the shrimp said? Concentrate on the darkness. Become aware of it blanketed around you, of its own awareness of you without thought, without consciousness…_

It was almost too easy to block out the smells as well. Having his nose pressed up to his body could do that.

Readily, like a movie reel waiting to begin, splotchy images from outside his thoughts started to filter through.

 _Darkness. Darkness. Feel for it, reach for it with your mind, devoid of intention or emotions. It's just shadows after all._

The dark splotches in the image lengthened, turning to something like ropes. Pale flesh poked out from their ends, down to a bare torso and crazed, tri-colored hair. Planks of wood—frames for walls before insulation and drywall could be applied—some were snapped and broken. But it was the cinderblocks surrounding the hanging body that Seto could see clearly. They were an old type of brick, used in industrial buildings during the forties and fifties. That was the color of the building half hidden in scaffolding and tarp.

 _Inside_ , he thought, and the moment he did the vision snapped closed.

Having a destination, he stood and took aim towards the old factory amidst the mess of construction and began his way from shadow to shadow, rolling his feet as the shrimp had taught him and mentally cushioning each bend of his joints. His black body suit made no sound.

Finding a way inside was laughably easy. Seto was surprised on not seeing any hobos asleep in the corners when he stepped past the tarp and into the darkness beyond. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust, which he cursed. Another testament of the lingering humanity still in his body. But once he could see, it was just more tarp and bricks and wooden frames. Even from such an early stage he could tell they were turning the old factory into some kind of apartment building.

Slinking to the walls, he continued on with bated breath.

 _Stupid old geezer getting himself tied up. How does he expect me to help?_ Seto scoffed at the idea and rechecked the rifle on his back, then the pistols at his hips. Then, after ducking into a tiny triangle of tarp and wood, hidden from any passing view, he closed his eyes and tried to feel out the shadows again, hoping for some sort of idea of where he was going. But all that came to his mind's eye was a shadowy figure in front of a flat screen TV, the shadows cast by the TV's brilliant screen hiding everything but the figure's white hair. He couldn't see anything past the screen.

So this weird vision power didn't exactly show the future or give suggestions. So far it seemed to only show the present. Maybe?

Silent as the grave, he slipped out of his hiding space and continued on, even tentatively sticking his nose up in the air. The moment he caught that whiff of his teacher, he followed it till he came to the backside of a blue tarp lit up by moonlight. A shadow of an arm tied up by something like rope and spikey hair casted in front of him. He tried closing his eyes to quest out another image of Atem, but the second wasn't much different from the first, and when it snapped away he felt a sharp twinge of an oncoming headache.

But he hadn't seen anyone else around Atem, so, cautiously, he pulled his rifle out, flicked off the safety, and leaned the side of his head around the tarp.

Sure enough, just as he had seen him in his mind's eye, Atem hung in the air by his wrists, held about by what looked like to be his own shadow tendrils. Two more shadow tendrils wrapped about his boots and ran down to the floor. He couldn't tell if the other vampire was conscious or not, as his wild hair hid his eyes from view. His chin rested on his chest.

Frowning, he reached down for one of the many stony crumbs at his feet and tossed it.

Atem flinched and his head twisted toward Kaiba. The eyes that met Seto's were dark and haunted. Not a speck of red glowed within them.

The two exchanged a look, a blink, and then Atem gave him a curt nod. Taking that as the okay, Seto held his rifle close in a way it wouldn't make nose and scuttled towards the shadows cast by Atem's body.

"You need to find Yugi," Atem whispered.

"So I'm leaving you hanging?" Seto hissed back.

"Yes. You can't break the shadows without alerting him. Hurry. I can catch her scent from the North West corner of the building. _Do not_ let him see you."

Seto rolled his eyes. That had been a given, alongside the same reasoning that told Seto that Atem didn't hang himself by his own shadows for giggles. The elder albino vampire had some tricks Seto was keen on discovering later, when it wasn't so obvious to even himself that he was a green horn.

Thus, once he had taken note of the position of the moon, he slunk back into the shadows and begun his silent trek towards the North West corner of the factory.

No sooner had he started when a sudden chill shot up his spine. Without thinking, he dropped into the nearest, deepest shadow he could find and pressed himself to the floor behind a pile of scaffolding and paint tarps.

At first, he heard nothing. But as he took a shallow, cautious breath, he caught the scent of something like a rotting watermelon Mokuba had accidentally left out overnight. Once he noticed it, he realized he had been smelling it since he had arrived at the building, but that he had ignored it as he would have should he have been human. Now his memory tickled with that of the albino vampire. His nose had been burning with that smell while the fiend had been atop him, tearing at him.

Of all the times to be negligent.

He heard a tarp nearby crinkle.

"I can smell you," came a low voice like dust and abandoned spaces. "Buffy's lemon trick won't work on my nose. Come out or I'll kill you."

Seto was experienced enough to know a bluff when he heard one, as well as when someone was being dead serious. The amount of casual confidence unnerved him. It sounded as though the man were talking to a coherent cockroach rather than a fellow vampire.

Thus, he schooled his emotions, pulled on a well practiced, cool, indifferent face that gave away nothing, and stood.

The albino vampire stood amidst the darkness and tarps, no different than the first time Seto had seen him, or the second time in his vision attacking Joey. The memory put a sour taste to his mouth. With what filtered moonlight made it around the cracks of the tarp backlighting the old vampire, he couldn't help but get flashes of the shadowed face back at the night club that had started it all. Red had tinted the edges of his attacker's hair, and he wondered if Atem had been right about it not being him, even if this vampire's hair was white as noonday. Seto could still smell the blood off of him, and the only emotion those inhuman black eyes displayed was lust.

Those same eyes, glowing a steady, red black, narrowed.

"I remember you. Trigger happy. Come for the girl as well? Why? Because the one hanging behind me told you to?"

"I don't really care for monsters that kidnap little girls," said Seto cooly.

"Look at that. You aren't shaking in the slightest, though I'm sure you can smell my strength from where you are. That's admirable."

No need for Seto to mention his lack of practice with his sense of smell. If strength smelled like rotting watermelons, he could do without it.

"I don't appreciate you talking about me like I'm a horse. If you don't mind, I'll take the girl and be on my way. You can keep the spiky haired guy."

Silver eyebrows rose above those strange, black eyes. "Oh? You aren't friends?"

"Not in the slightest."

"And you'll try to threaten me with your rifle if I don't let you have her? Guns don't really do the trick, you know."

Seto shrugged. "Seemed to slow you down before."

The almost jovial look on the man's face fell away to be replaced with a dry, almost indifferent kind of irritation. Seto returned to coherent cockroach.

"I can't believe I paused my game for you," he said lowly. "Go away, and—"

Seto fired his rifle into the vampire's foot.

Since he hadn't moved the gun up to take aim, the other hand no warning. A high caliber snifer rifle was overpowered for close quarters, which meant bone and flesh and plumes of vaporized concrete went flying and the entire ankle vanished. Bakura tipped to the side, mouth dropping open—

Seto stepped in, throwing his weight behind the fist he aimed at the vamp's throat. The force threw the albino back through the tarp and into the blinding moonlight.

The CEO didn't stop there. He leapt forward, bringing up his rifle, jumped through the tarp with his heavy black boots aimed for the fallen vamp's chest—

To be clotheslined by something he hadn't even seen. It had no temperature, no texture, and yet it pulled around his throat like an unyielding tendril of metal.

The wind broke from him and his feet left the floor. He was choking. Yet his training kicked in, and rather than hanged their stunned as the normal human was prone to do when the breath was knocked out of them and they found themselves suddenly midair by the throat, he just took aim and shot.

Another overpowered bullet splashed into the man's chest. Dark blood flew.

But the tendril about his neck just tightened, bringing stars to his eyes. He could feel his neck pop, even as he knew everything from air to blood was being caught off from his brain.

And then he came to with a hungry, angry gasp for breath and laid out on construction rubble. He heard a feral roar—a woman's roar.

And for the first time, he registered his sense of smell first. Nothing, but through that, like a wisp of dust—

 _Chocolate and rosemary._

He forced his trembling, unbalanced body up, managing to get to his hands and knees by the time he managed to catch sight of Josephine. The scrawny girl, his black sweats still looking like they'd swallow her legs, grappled with the white monster, dark blood splattered about her mouth.

It was that splatter of blood that made him see the change that had come over her. There was no silly warmth in her chocolate brown eyes, but a deep, maroon glow that outlined enlarged pupils as dark as any shadow. Her fangs were bared, mouth agape and snapping towards whatever bit of the other's flesh she could reach, even as the white vampire gripped her wrists and kept her at arm's length.

But Seto forgot all that at the site of the ancient vampire, whose face had lost all semblance to humanity. The flesh of the face had split till his entire jaw of wicked teeth were bared in their gray gums and hung open wide like a snake's. His eyelids had spread apart till they vanished into his skull, allowing the black eyes to pop from their sockets. A long, gray tongue lashed towards her, spraying spittle across her fine dust of freckles.

Joey roared again and flung the vampire aside, but it was like throwing a cat. The vampire simply landed on his feet and sprung back at her, plastering her to the floor.

Above it all was Atem, now swinging from only a lone tendril of shadow.

"SHOOT HIM!" He roared.

 _And hit Joey_? Thought Seto, even as he watched them roll across the debre of the metal roof. Lines of red appeared along Joey's bare arms as her flesh split from the others claws, but the white vampire showed not a scratch. Seto remembered feeling the white vampire's steel-like flesh. Even the hole he'd put in the thing's chest wasn't as bad as Seto had hoped. Blood didn't even drip from it.

But just as he began to consider throwing himself into the fray, another tendril of shadow snaked out from the corners and wriggled towards the pair. Just as Joey gave a shriek of pain, blood pouring from a mouth-sized gape in her shoulder, the tendril went taut and the white vampire was slung down from atop Joey. Its claws dug through the concrete as though it were butter, sending bits of stone flying.

Ignoring her wound, Joey flipped to her feet, crouched and snarling like the inhuman thing she had become.

"SHOOT!"

Seto already had his rifle up. He shot. Stone and white hair bloomed up, but the old vampire had turned away at the last second.

He shot again, but the white vampire had writhed to his feet and it's gaping, monstrous jaws now faced Seto. In a blink the creature was upon him, teeth clouding his vision, claws digging in to the bones of his arms as though the flesh weren't there at all.

With a shrill war cry, Joey threw herself on the ancient one's back and sunk her teeth into it's throat.

It cried out and turned its attention to her, scrabbling and clawing at her belligerent blond head, sending great tuffs of it falling down on Seto—and let Seto's arms free.

He snapped back the rifle, shoved it to its chest, and fired.

And remembered at the last minute that Joey was on the other side.

The bullet went through both of them and crashed into wooden scaffolding above.

Seto didn't stop to think. He shoved his gun up the chest of the screeching monstrosity to its chin, which was to the side of Joey's head, and fired again and again and again and again.

When the magazine clicked empty, the old vampire's body gave a great shudder and collapsed on him, its head nothing more that bits of remaining skull near the neck and gray brain matter.


	29. Demon Sighted

**Thanks to Jil again, you get an extra chapter before Monday! Enjoy. :3**

Chapter 28

The last shadow dropped Atem in time for him to catch Joey as Kaiba pushed her off along with the headless corpse. He only had time to register the hole in her back before the newborn vampire spun about in his hands like a rolling log down a river and dug her fangs into his shoulder. He gave a shout of surprised pain and shoved at her, just to find an alarming strength defying him. It didn't seem to matter that she was missing the flesh from one shoulder and had tiger stripes of gashes along the rest of her.

"Kaiba, stop her! She'll poison herself!"

But the tall man just brushed himself off and smirked at his downed teacher. "What do you expect me to do? I've tried feeding her human blood and she just throws it back up."

Atem stared at him. "You didn't—" the girl bit down harder with a growl, cutting him off. Realizing he had no other choice, he felt out the hole on her back and shoved a fist in at the same time that he punched the side of her throat with his other.

She pitched off him with a chocked squawk. He rolled away, reaching for his shadows as the blond girl hacked and retched through her crushed throat.

And then Kaiba was there, gathering her into his arms as though she were much more fragile than she had just proven herself to be.

"Don't let her—" too late. Kaibe had guided the girl's mouth to his throat, where she bit in and curled up against his chest like a babe.

"I'm sure I can trust you not to kill Yugi," said Kaiba, as though he didn't have a full-grown woman in his arms nursing off his throat.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

Kaiba's eyes narrowed. "What I can. I already told you, she threw up any human blood I gave her."

Atem opened his mouth to give an angry retort, then realized there was nothing to be done now anyways. Joey had already inherited her lot in life, however short and violent it would be. Putting a hand to the already closed holes on the side of his neck, he sighed and made his way over to the twitching, headless body. Already, bone and muscle were reforming like the growth of a plant on high-speed.

"He needs to be burned, like, now," Atem said as he kneeled beside the body and took aim for the chest. "Do you have any gasoline?"

"Yes. Didn't you say vamp fumes were toxic to humans?"

"Which is why I'm going to ask you to take Yugi. I need to take him outside city limits." Atem shoved his hand forward and merely broke it trying to break through the titanium of the vampire's ribs. He hissed in pain and shook it off.

"I don't think that's much of an option," said Kaiba.

Atem tossed him a questioning look over his shoulder as he tried digging around the ribs to the throbbing heart beneath. But even once he felt it throbbing against his nails, it's surface was like stone. All the while, the base of the corpse's skull continued to form.

Bakura's torso arched up.

"The whole city has been locked down by the military and they're on the alert for anything strange."

"They won't see me," said Atem.

"Sure. Your party." The CEO paused. "I don't think it's a good idea I take the girl."

Atem was about to ask, then already knew. Joey was taking blood from Kaiba. The man also had his own share of injuries from the ancient vampire's assault. He should be getting thirsty, and there was no telling how long it would take for his brother to bring the helicopter over.

With a low curse, Atem pulled his bruised fingers from between the headless vampire's ribs.

"Here, then," he grabbed Bakura's wrist and tossed his body over to Seto as though it were but a large sock doll. "Have Josephine suck on that. Heart's still pumping, but I can't get to it, so her drinking his blood should slow the healing process."

Kaiba's expression twisted at the sight of the gore, and Atem took only a second to be amused by this before rolling his feet forward and dashing out into the shadows of the factory.

He found the closet she had been locked in quick enough. A quick chop of the hand did away with the metal lock.

"Yugi?" Her scent rose up to brush across his face like a long lost lover.

He could make out her thick mane of hair above an old quilt she had curled under. He kneeled down, chest aching with both concern and a heartbreaking joy.

"Yugi? I'm here now. I'm going to take you home."

When she didn't move, he dared to pull aside the blanket enough to brush his fingertips across her brow.

It was cold. And clammy.

He tore away the quilt and pulled her up. Her skin sunk about her eyes, giving them a purple-ish, bruised look, and her skin had gone almost gray. Blood had dried along the side of her throat and he could make out the knobby scabs of bite marks.

He pressed his ear to her chest and almost missed her own faint, fragile heartbeat against the sudden pounding of his own.

"Kaiba!" He wrapped her tight in the quilt as quick as he could and fumbled to his feet with her in his arms.

He thought he heard a distant shout, but he was already running as hard as he could.

Thankfully, Kaiba was still there, talking to something small on the inside of his collar. At his feet Joey sprawled atop the old vampire's corpse, gnawing and growling at the remains of the old one's throat like a dog worrying a bone. It was most likely healing as fast as she could drink.

"—hurry, I think I hear sirens," Atem heard the tall man say.

Sure enough, above the blaring of his own panic, Atem heard the tall tale wail of police cars.

Atem all but shoved Yugi into his chest.

"She needs to get to a hospital, now!"

Kaiba glanced down at the quilted bundle, but didn't take her. "What's wrong with her?"

"Blood loss and hypothermia," Atem said without a thought, but he knew a second later he was correct. "Please, forget everything else, just take her, give her some of your blood bank, anything."

"Can't you fly?" Seto asked, irate, even though Atem caught the crinkling concern in the corner of those blue eyes.

Just as Atem opened his mouth, Joey gave a small cry and their gazes jerked to the body—

Which had come to life and had its hands about Joey's throat, despite having grown back nothing more than a boney, half-fleshed bottom jaw and only a handful of pinkish-gray brain matter.

Kaiba jumped forward and stomped down at the offending arms, which merely served to bring Joey down with them. With a shout he yanked out the handguns at his side and fired into the jaw and mass of brains, splattering the soft ooze across the rubble behind it. The arms jerked and went flaccid. The bloody, still instinct-crazed Joey lunged forward to continue feeding, but Kaiba yanked her back by the bare remains of her shirt.

"I'll burn the body!" Seto shouted over Joey's snarling. "Just go!"

Atem didn't have time to argue. With a burst of adrenaline, he once more shoved out his wings from his flesh and launched himself through the hole of the broken roof.

Just as he pulled up shadows to coil about him, half a dozen police cars rounded onto the street. Their flashing red and blue lights would have blinded a human, and Atem lost a precious moment of concentration from the pain. But then the shadows were back and he was back to climbing into the sky, holding Yugi to his warmth the best he could.

"Just hold on, Yugi, don't die on me. Please."

He had never flown faster than he did that night, both taken with his instincts and the panicked flight to the hospital. When he reached there his wings and back burned something fierce and he was hardly aware of the bones and membrane melting back into his flesh. His arms trembled as he stumbled down from the helicopter pad, and a part of him became aware of the growing thirst tensing the back of his throat.

A nurse jumped so hard she fell off her chair when Atem shoved through the doors.

"How did you—where-?"

"Please, she's dying! Blood loss and hypothermia!"

Thankfully, the nurse was professional enough to jump into action. As she rapidly ordered up personnel through a walkie talkie, she ran around the corner and came back a few seconds later with a gurney. Atem met her half way and moved to lay Yugi out onto it, but at the sight of the sterile white crashing with the red of her punctured throat, his arms seized.

He had done this. He had brought this down upon her.

"It's okay, we've got her now," said the nurse, mistaking his hesitation for consternation.

But still, his arms wouldn't let go. A keening wail had started up somewhere within him.

 _This is the last time I'm going to see her._

Even if little Yugi lived through this, Atem could never see her. This would be his last picture of her, half dead in his arms with blood across her throat and blue-purple lips.

What seemed like only moments later, a doctor in blue scrubs was gently lifting the bundle of Yugi from Atem's reluctant arms. Behind the doctor were two thick chested men wearing the dark, utilitarian uniform of security hands. Their hands on Atem's bare skin were hot, and the thirst at the back of his throat stretched out, wetting his mouth.

He met the two men's eyes and knew they knew what he was. Cold as he'd never known gripped him.

"If you'd come with us, sir," one drew out a gun.

Atem waited until Yugi had been carted out of sight before kicking the gun from the man's hand with his inhuman speed. Then, with the momentum of his dropping foot, spun about for a round house across their chests that sent them crashing into one another and to the floor.

Without a backwards glance, he spun and fled back out to the hospital roof, where he tore out his protesting, aching wings and fled into the darkness.

What had he been thinking, going to the roof? There'd be cameras up there, and cameras all around the desk, surely. If not that, the personnel could identify his face.

And why was he having a hard time caring?


	30. A Desire for Death

**Ugh, apartment scouting stresses me out. Also, this is the first of another two chapters today. Enjoy!**

Chapter 29

The consciousness Joey came to was half-formed and blurred. She saw images, crystal clear, but couldn't process entirely what she was seeing. Fire like pain sparked and dazzled her consciousness from all over, though concentrated on her right shoulder and right beneath her rib cage.

But cool, refreshing not-oxygen slipped down her throat, calming her. The pain remained, but there was nothing she could do about it but continue to feed.

Somewhere in her muddled consciousness, she registered a familiar smell, though not as familiar as… _him._ The one the rolling waves of the creature within her whined for like a troubled child does for their baby blanket or precious toy. This one smelled a little like him, but she knew it wasn't him. For one, he was smaller.

As her perceptions recollected themselves, bit by bit, she began to comprehend them. The beating roar of helicopter blades. Smells of metal, gas, and air. Soft, small hands at her head, along with a cold soft pouch of something she knew of, and did not like. And the tall-tell scent of a heady, thick sweetness that had clogged the back of her throat.

Groaning, she pulled her teeth out from her source of not-oxygen and moved towards it, just to be stopped by the hands. Pain spiked through her shoulder enough to give her a flash of clarity.

Mokuba was trying to pull her back. Mokuba with glowing, hungry violet eyes like his brother, his teeth in a blood bag.

And then she saw the bloody mess which was her shoulder. And it didn't stop there. Stripes of raw flesh ran down her arms and chest, even across the side of a breast that she hurriedly tried to cover with what remained of her shirt, to her regret as the pain of moving said arm brought a scream from her throat.

Mokuba dropped the blood bag and pulled her back more incessantly. Joey had no choice. The pain was blinding her, along with panic.

"Moki, I can't-I can't remember—what happened to me?" The words all but vanished as her voice pitched into the hypersonic.

"It's okay, Joey, you'll heal, just come back—"

"No, this-" Joey gasped, the various wounds giving flashes of agony.

With surprising strength for one his size, but perhaps not for a vampire, Mokuba shoved Joey's face back to his throat and brought the blood bag back to his own mouth.

The next time Joey came back up, the thundering of the helicopter had vanished and the sharp tang of green, growing things and sea salt stung her nose. The pain of her shoulder and her gut had lessened, but her body still felt bruised and beaten. She could still smell the ultra-sweet something, but it was weaker now. Somehow, she knew, that whatever had given off the icing sweet aroma had been moved and all she was smelling was what remained of it.

She unlatched from Mokuba slowly, wary of aggravating her wounds. Her mess of a shoulder still oozed, but at least she couldn't see bone anymore.

"You okay?" she asked him.

Mokuba nodded, mouth full with a fresh blood bag. The glow to his eyes had yet to leave.

Joey bit her lip and glanced towards where the remains of the sweet smell came from—a bloody splotch on the floor. She closed her eyes against the urge to get down and lick it, and instead tried to recall what she remembered last. She had jerked awake and broke off from Mokuba, jumped out of the helicopter, and followed the only scent she knew by heart, that of Seto Kaiba. Then she had smelled the stomach clenching sweetness mingled in, gone through the factory, seen Kaiba hanging by his throat with that white… _thing_ in front of him—

At the vague uprush of heat and power from her gut, her memories drew to a close. The last thing she could squeeze out was leaping at the back of the man with the thick mass of bone-white hair.

"Seto should be back soon," said Mokuba softly, having dropped his blood bag to his chin.

Joey squinted out of the open helicopter side at the green underbrush and trees. She didn't know if it was just her, but the sky seemed a bit lighter than before. "Why are we here?"

"To burn a vampire far away from humans. Atem says the dust or vapor of the burning flesh can poison them."

A vampire? So perhaps she'd killed the ugly sucker without knowing it? "But what about Yugi?"

"Atem took her to the hospital," said Mokuba kindly. "You should drink more—"

" _Hospital?"_

Mokuba winced. "Joey, there's nothing to be done now but heal. Please, your healing slowly and still have cuts all over you, and your shoulder—"

"Tell me what happened to Yugi. Did she get hurt?" A horrible thought struck her. "Did I hurt her?"

"No! It was the other vampire that hurt her, the one you saved Seto from," a happy, almost goofy smile spread across Mokuba's face, its childishness marred by the fangs jutting out onto his lower lip. "I heard you were awesome. But seriously, Seto can't give you any more blood right now, so you should take care of yourself before your instincts over take you and make you latch onto him again."

But Joey had already scooted to the edge of the copter and swung her feet around. Mokuba jumped up with a clatter.

"Joey! Stop!"

"I'm not going to suck on a kid anymore."

"But it's not like that—"

Joey pushed off. The jar of her feet impacting earth made her gut and shoulder scream, and for a moment red clouded her vision. But with gritted teeth, she shoved through it and made her way through the underbrush after the tall-tell scent of Kaiba and that sugary-sweet something. It made her throat ache.

 _Whatever that is, it's gotta be better than feeding on Kaiba's baby brother._

The underbrush wasn't kind to her healing skin. The sweats and shirt she had been given had been shredded and only just resembled clothes anymore, which left her with little to no protection to the salt breeze hardened bushes and scrubby trees. When a twig jabbed too deep, something snapped within her. She attacked the push with her heels. As its trunk gave way like a tooth pick to her supernatural strength, her eyes began to burn. She clenched down and tasted blood in her mouth. Actual blood, not the not-oxygen.

She kicked down a tree before continuing on with a hard sniff, that red-black that wasn't quite unconsciousness or light headedness dusting the edge of her vision. Her throat ached to close on her, but her heavy breathing kept it gaping open and raw.

When the foliage finally cleared, she stepped out onto a steep, sandy beachside that leveled off at the bottom, dotted with tide pools framed by gravel like sand. The ocean spread out like a riveted, iron metal plain, almost too bright to look at under the graying sky. Everywhere she looked it was grays and silvers.

Except for Kaiba, who had his feet on a corpse whose clothes had been bathed in dark blood. The only way she could tell it wasn't the original color was because of the flecks of white and blue at the bottom of the shirt and clean patches on the jeans.

She slid down, hissing at her pains and angrily shoving back the red that wanted to blind her. As her feet hit level ground, a loud, skull-breaking crack rent the air and she saw the corpse jerk. Disgust like bile rose to her throat as she recognized the source of the almost too-sweet scent. But at least it wasn't a child.

But that thought just made her angrier.

"Kaiba," she started, just to stop as the most rancid sharp scent burned up her nostrils. She clamped her hands over her nose. "What the crap!"

"Nothing left to snack on here, puppy," He had a red jug, the contents of which he poured about the corpse, even as it lifted up an arm and grabbed onto his leg. Kaiba swore softly and another crack burst her eardrums as he fired off the rifle in his other hand into the creatures chest. "Know why he said to get the heart not the head. Freak won't die."

Joey froze, eyes widening. Gasoline. That's what that horrible smell was.

Seto pulled out a lighter from within his shirt somewhere, lit it, then dropped it. Flames burst to life on the body, licking up those bloody clothes, and as Seto stepped back to avoid catching fire himself, Joey saw the boney, bloody bowl of what was left of the thing's skull.

Now she had her hands to her face for a whole other reason. Her stomach pitched up, just to burn at the base of her throat. A part of her shoved it down, remembering Mokuba's words about her blood thirst, but what of her anger had survived began to lift its head in sudden realization.

If she had to suck someone dry, it might as well be the guy who was currently making her live through this. He had been the one to stick his neck into her face. He was the one that hadn't let her suffocate to death, for she knew, gut deep, that that was where she had been heading.

Kaiba glanced at her as he leaned down to throw wood on the now writhing headless body. His eyes narrowed on her shoulder and he tossed a particularly large dead log onto the things chest.

"Go back to the copter."

"No," said Joey, just to find opening her mouth was a mistake. Turning her head away from the grisly, burning, still moving corpse, she vomited onto the beach.

Dark blood splattered back onto her face as they hit the stones. Her stomach wound smarted from the effort, and red came pouring into her vision faster than ever. In an instant, Kaiba was there with a hand on her back as she coughed out the remains.

"Idiot," he muttered.

"You're the one burning a freaking person alive," she managed to cough before she retched again. "Oh God, the smell."

"Is that what's making you sick?"

"If it is," she forced herself away from him and tried to straighten through the pain and what little remained of her awareness. "Let it. I don't…I don't want to…"

The red closed in. Her mind went wild, wired, as though she had been electrocuted.

When it cleared she had her face once more in the crook of his neck and held to him like a leach. She popped her fangs loose from his neck, a scream at the tip of her tongue.

"Stop it!"

"You're the one who jumped me," said the man calmly. His eyes had the same bright glow to them as Mokuba's now.

She shoved him away all the same, and he let her drop hard to the pebbly beach. Only then did she notice how hard she shook.

"You should have let me die," she said, eyes to her knees. "Why couldn't you just let me die? This ain't no way to live."

"You would have survived on someone else, if not me."

"You know that ain't true. I was suffocating, I was dying. I remember, I couldn't move let alone go hunting for someone."

Kaiba didn't say anything. She reflexively pulled in her shoddily covered legs as Kaiba rolled back to his feet. A strange, bubbling sort of whistling was coming from the direction of the fire, and she forced herself not to look.

"What a pain," she heard, then another crack of gunfire. The whistling stopped, and the fire's crackling continued beneath the gentle whoosh of the ocean.

Joey forced herself to breathe through her mouth as the aroma of burning sweets and gasoline stung her lungs and throat. She hugged her legs in tighter.

"Is that how we die?" she asked.

"As far as I know," a kick into the stones. "I'm thinking an explosive in the gut would be pretty effective. Depend on a plant doctor to not think of that."

"Could you…could you kill me, then?"

Another crackle of pebbles and sand. Her shoulder hurt something awful, but at least the part of her arms she gripped had healed up so she didn't dig her fingers into any healing wounds.

"No."

This snapped her head up. Luckily, she couldn't see much of what was burning past his crouched figure. The sky had gotten brighter on the horizon, though, and her eyes watered.

"And why the hell not?"

"Because it'd be a waste of effort. Be a good puppy and go back already. You're distracting me."

"I'm not a dog!"

"Right."

"Just shoot me like you did that guy and burn me! Roast marshmallows on me or something."

"Ugh, they'd taste disgusting."

"If you won't, I will."

"What, shoot yourself? Good luck with that."

Joey got to her feet and wobbled. When would her throat ever feel normal again? Or at least not like she had strep or something. Red crowded her vision momentarily before dashing off. She walked up to him, doing her best to ignore both the still wriggling funeral pyre and the patch of blood vomit. The latter gave her the disturbing urge to get down and start sucking the blood from the pebbles.

She reached for the discarded rifle at his side, a fancy, deadly looking black creature, just to have him swipe it from her faster than she could see.

"Pardon you, this is my gun. Stop talking big when your breasts are hanging out."

She did her best to keep face as she tightly wrapped her arms about her chest. It was a sign of just how messed up her life had become that she hadn't even give a thought to how shredded her clothes were. Still, she couldn't help but think he sounded like an irritated parent shutting down a kid who kept whining to go to Disneyland.

"Take me seriously here, Jerkwad! I want to die!"

"Then join the club!"

It was the first time he'd ever straight up snapped at her, and there was a brittleness to the anger that silenced her far quicker than the volume ever could. Like somebody yelling would ever scare her. Except maybe Yugi yelling. She never yelled.

 _Yugi…_

A small blackhole came to being in her chest that sucked everything inward with a terrifying, painful might. She dropped down to the beach on her rump and pulled in her legs, ignoring the protest of her various wounds. This hurt more than they ever could.

The twitching of the burning body begun to increase again, and Joey found herself watching as though from a distance as Seto tore off his shirt, tossed it towards her, and then yanked the body from the pile of burning wood. Almost instantly the flames on its skin started to die and it's squirming intensified.

"Put that on," he said, with nothing to show he felt the red hot burns that now lanced the arm that had reached into the fire.

Joey happily turned her attention to shedding the rags and pulling on his black shirt. It went well past her hips and the sleeves went to the ends of her fingers. She got a murmur of mysterious pleasure from that. Especially since it smelled of him, though that just made her throat hurt worse and her mouth water.

When she looked up, Seto had pulled out a sharp black blade from his side and was taking it to the gut of the blackened vampire body. The blade went in an inch or to, then stopped. The things blackened arms flailed toward him and scrabbled at his arms. He swore as he tried again, but to no avail. Black smears were being traced across his white tank top from the struggles of the corpse.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Trying to get to his damn heart. The flames aren't doing anything."

He tried again, this time at an angle, but to no avail.

"No use. You're going to have to try."

Her stomach jerked. "Nyeh?"

"You're stronger than me, so get over here."

Feeling that rusty taste of her own blood (the only blood that actually tasted like blood anymore), she crawled over and accepted the knife from him.

"Cut upwards, into the chest," said Kaiba coolly, as though they were working on a car and not a body that had already kicked Joey's thigh—hard. "If you can, cut up until you reach here," he pointed over where the heart would be.

Too shaken to ask why he hadn't just broken through the rib cage with his gun or said explosion he had mused about, she did what she always did when confronted with the extremely unpleasant and terrifying: bit down and shoved herself into it before she could think about it. The screaming and freaking out came later when she was back with Yugi and all was safe.

The jerk of pain at the thought of her friend powered her to put her whole weight into the thrust, eyes burning, mouth filled with the taste of rust.

It vanished inside as she got in wrist deep.

"Good," said Kaiba. "Cut all the way up, then quickly put your other hand in and grab the heart."

But the feel of the burning hot flesh contracting about her hand, and the flailing of the legs she straddled froze her up. She could feel a scream coming on. Her skin bunched up until she had goose bumps on goose bumps, and her mind went into a blaring panic.

Seto's cool hand on her elbow pushed her.

"Keep going. Don't think about it."

Why were they killing this guy? _They were freaking cutting someone's heart out!_

But it wasn't someone, it was a black monster with no head, leaving long trails of red down Kaiba's arms as he held it down—protecting her from it.

Somehow, seeing him getting hurt gave her enough to shove through with all her strength till the bottom of the rib cage dug into the crook of her arm. It had been like stabbing through a very thick clay.

"Other hand."

She once more moved before she could think. Digging her hand, nails first, besides her arm into the opening. All sorts of hard things resisted her till she felt the smooth edge of the knife.

Kaiba still had his fingers over where the heart would be. She could feel it, as it was the only hard thing in there that was beating. She abandoned the knife, gripped the slimy, beating thing with both hands, and yanked back with every last fiber of her being.

It came loose with an awful, sucking noise, and the force rolled her head over heels twice before landing on her hands and the still thumping thing.

It took her five seconds.

Then she jumped to her feet, screaming like a banshee, and tossed the dark red bloody thing as far as she could. She didn't see where it landed, too busy turning in circles, flapping her sticky wet hands, and shrieking for all she had.

She heard his loud laughter when she had to breathe.

" _SHUT UP, SETO KAIBA!"_

But he just kept on laughing so hard he had a hard time throwing the now still body back into the fire. Once he did he fell onto his back, clutching his stomach, positively howling with mirth.

She stomped over and kicked him in the ribs, teeth bared.

"I said shut up! There's nothing funny about this!"

"Stop—stop—" he gasped, now holding his side, though obviously still trying not to laugh. "Mind your strength."

"Mind your face! _That's going to traumatize me for the rest of my life and it's still all your damn fault!"_

He wheezed, rolling onto his side, shaking with repressed mirth.

She scowled at him and just refrained from kicking him again. Freak, she should kick him again. Jerk deserved it.

His wheezing faded into panting. Joey frowned with growing apprehension as she watched the gashes on his arms close up.

"Hey, you gonna be okay."

"Th-thirsty…" he gasped.

Despite the urge to beat him black and blue, she became overwhelmed with concern. She knew that pain. The suffocation. The loss of consciousness.

"I'll go get something for you to…drink?"

Seto had gotten to his feet so quick it betrayed the apparently weak trembling and panting of his body. Before she could think otherwise, he had turned with dark, yet still brightly glowing eyes, and lunged at her.

As her head crashed against the pebbling shore, his sharp fangs dug deep into her neck, she remembered the other times when she had felt this pain before and the darkness that had followed afterwards. She remembered the all encompassing terror that came with realizing you were about to die and nothing you did would stop it.

Red black swallowed her vision.

But it didn't stay. She blinked and it was gone, and he had drawn back his fangs. Something soft and wet glided over the sting of her neck. A second later, she realized it was his tongue. It vanished almost as soon as she recognized it to be replaced by the soft, butterfly brush of his lips.

"Contrary to your scent, you taste nasty," he murmured, and the heat of his breath contrasting with the cold sand and air made her shiver.

And still trembling like a reed in the wind, he got off of her and stalked off back through the bushes and scrubby trees towards the helicopter.


	31. Fallen

**The second of two chapters I updated today, so make sure you read the one before this. ^.^**

 **And Happy Birthday to Jilnauchtagen and me! Our birthdays were right next to each other! Mine on the 7th, and hers on the 8th, how cool is that?**

Chapter 30

Despite the durability of his body, Atem's wings were fragile, weak things. It only made sense with their ability to retract back into his flesh. Anything sturdy took time to make, even with the enhanced metabolism of his body. It had taken him all near three hundred years to build, not only his back muscles, but his wings' endurance to what they had now, which had taken him across the city and back.

He had gone beyond that max when he'd landed atop the hospital.

Now choking with pain, he no longer had the clarity of mind to keep hold of the shadows hiding him. Not only was it taking all it had in him to fight against the pain of keeping his wings out so he didn't plummet to the city below, but his thirst had taken advantage of the night of unkept high emotions and his exhaustion. He no longer had wings. Just great tents of fire larger than him.

He had no choice. He had to return to the earth, take the rest of the way on foot.

 _I have to get back to Kaiba…_

The boy didn't know what he had helped bring forth in Joey. And the ancient vampire, if they didn't figure out how to get that heart out soon, and then get rid of it just—

A lightning snap of pain.

Atem fell.

The air slapped at him, catching to what remained of his flimsy wings and sent him spinning. He scrambled for bearings, clawing at his back, but it was too late. The limb his fingers pinched had the consistency of Playdoh. His back muscles spasmed to suck back in the flesh against the wild air forces. A scream of agony tore from his mouth.

He just had to catch the edge of one—hold out what was left of the membrane like a parachute—

An edge of a building caught his leg, flipping him back even faster. He squeezed his eyes shut. Over the scream of air was the loud honk of a horn.

Black.

And in that blackness, where his thoughts were nothing, his thirst flared up in a scorching, all encompassing fire, and a heady, persistent throb. His heartbeat.

His consciousness trickled in, like water being poured into a trough. Usually when he woke up from the monster's possession, it was a snap. But then, he had only been this damaged one time before, when his heart had been torn from his chest.

Like then, smell came first. But not delicate and finely tuned, but in a base, cursory sense. And what came to him was blood. Savory as meat to a starving man, mouth watering as baking desserts, enticing as crystal water in the desert.

Then colors and lights. Blinding lights. Splotches of clear images, like a streetlight, broken glass on the sidewalk, steam from the crunched hood of the car.

Screaming. People screaming, like pigs to the slaughter.

 _Oh dear God…_

And, finally, the sense of feeling.

It was perhaps, again, the instincts way of survival to give him this sense last, for with it came his awareness of where his body was.

Long, satin cool hair tangled in his fingers. Denim against his bare chest. Warmth, softness, a comfortable weight. He caught a whiff of that plastic smell of fragrance that infiltrated every cosmetic product in that day. The woman's blood soothed down his body, stiching up pains and clearing his mind even as he drank.

Only when his mouth filled with nothing but bruised, mashed flesh instead of blood did the monster finally hand over the reins. He dropped her, his frame trembling so hard he fell to his knees.

Because, scattered across the downtown street with bits of glass and car, were at least a dozen bodies. Men. Women. Both young and old. Still no children. But that was hardly a relief to his sanity.

Atem shoved himself up, paying no mind to the glass that bit into his hands.

 _Oh God…Oh God…what have I…_

Two cars had wrecked, one face first into a street light next to him with the passenger door hanging open where he had stood. Likely, he had pulled the blond woman he had just dropped from there. The other vehicle had been turned onto its side, leaving smears of red paint where it had skidded across the asphalt.

Hundreds of screaming people still fled the scenes. A block down he could see a set of police officers fighting to get through.

His brain told him to run, but his body wouldn't move. Somehow, this was worse than the aftermaths of his attempted suicide. The too-bright city lights gave the scene a painful, otherworldly glow that gave the last touch to Atem's personal hell.

He stumbled back to the building, unable to hold himself up alone.

"This…this isn't real…"

Four more police officers appeared from seemingly nowhere. Atem watched them run at him in a daze. The reality only hit him when they did. A live stun gun hit his throat, but even though his muscles went obediently rigid, he hardly felt it. Soon the whole human race was trying to dog pile him and he couldn't breathe, but still it was like from a dream or across a grand distance.

He knew this numbness. He welcomed it.

They flipped him like he was a wild bear, cuffed his entire lower arms and wrists with a metal locker of sorts, cuffed his lower legs in the same manner, and muzzled him. He understood why they handled him like a predatory animal. No, worse, like a monster. The human inside him grimly put the cuffs on him as well.

The back of an armored truck which was—and here was the first act of compassion—blessedly dark. A box, a container.

Drifting. Driving. Somewhere far.

Pulled out. Voices. Bright lights. He closed his eyes against it all. What if the killed him? Wouldn't he be lucky then. Hopefully they did it right the first time.

Somewhere, in the numbness which he drifted, he found himself wandering back to his errands. Yugi walked beside him in the white hijab from his country, her eyes like jewels in the sunlight, even viewed through his heavy tinted sunglasses. It reminded him of an extinct time when even the bare shoulder of a woman, or the silken lock of her hair, would elicit a dream like desire within him. Back when he walked the burning sands of the desert without fear of the sun. Back when his father still pointed to a particularly strong herb he'd been cultivating in the kitchen window for months. Back when his mother gave a shrill cry of triumph when she caught a new born babe, healthy and strong.

He could almost smell the myrrh of his mother's favorite sari. Feel the strength of a tiny newborn hand. Feel the dry crisp of the well's stones after a day tending their small farm.

He closed his eyes and stayed.


	32. Hospital Cell

**Sorry for the late update! I moved last weekend and my new place doesn't have internet, and I don't know when I'll be able to get it because internet cost money and being alive cost money too and I have to pick one. Tricky choice, right there. I'm leeching of my local church's wifi right now to send you this update, as I also don't have a car to drive to the library or somewhere more warm. Gal, my fingers.**

 **As an apology, this will be the first of two updates for today. ^.^ Please enjoy!**

Chapter 31

Yugi still felt adrift when she woke up in a dim room on a hard bed. White washed cinderblock walls. A toilet across the way. The light wasn't coming from the room itself, though, but from the front, which was made of metal bars, thin, and well placed so not even a small hand such as her own could get out.

She sat up, only to regret it as her head turned. An empty bag with the thin remains of red hung from a pole besides her bed, along with another half filled with a colorless, murky liquid. It connected to an IV in her arm, which she stared at as her vision returned. At least she was warm now. Hot packs and blankets had been stuffed and thrown about her with deliberate care, which contrasted with the tiny cell she now found herself in.

Somewhere, she heard a chair squeak.

"How are we feeling?" came a small, petite voice.

Yugi rolled her head around to get a look out the bars, where a young woman in blue scrubs stood.

Now she was really confused.

"Why am I in a prison?" she asked, then squinted. "Or is this some weird sort of asylum?"

The little nurse gave a tight smile. "We have to be sure you don't show any signs of infection before you can be released. The cell is only to protect others should you be an infected."

"Infected?"

"By whatever virus is causing this vampiric like disease. You were admitted with the bloodloss and puncture wounds consistent with an attack by one who is infected, so it is just a precautionary measure." She wrote on her clipboard as she said this with the tone of one who had to repeat that one too many times, and without any breaks.

Oh.

"Don't worry," the nurse continued, the scratching of her pen actually sort of comforting. "We'll do everything we can to make you comfortable until you're checked out. You've done nothing wrong."

Yugi looked at the bare, empty toilet and the tiny sink beside it and had a hard time believing that.

"The bars and brick are a little extreme though," said Yugi conversationally, even though in her gut she knew it wasn't. Atem had already told her of the inhuman strength vampire's could possess, as well as their ferocity when taken over by their instincts. Thus, she was only half invested in the conversation. A major part of her still felt like she was back in the smelly closet getting colder and colder as she fell deeper into the dark.

It wasn't like she'd ever have the power to do anything about it.

The nurse didn't respond to this. She glanced back up at Yugi a few times, asked her general questions about her throat, which had been bandaged, to her energy levels, appetite, etc. All Yugi's answers reflected her emotional state as well: dark, bland, and empty. She almost didn't care to think how she had gotten here. It didn't really matter.

Atem rose to her mind, his warm arms tight about her, almost possessively, and a spike of heat went through her. The only memory she had after she had fallen asleep in the closet, and even then more of a dream and a memory of lemon and sage. But it had to be him. He had been asleep in her room, after all. Perhaps he'd come down to find her and then followed the scent of her kidnapper. And if they were locking up everyone who was bitten by a vampire, there was no saying what they'd actually do with a vampire.

A sudden thrill of fear clenched her gut.

"What happens to those who are infected?"

The nurse didn't seem fazed by this question either. "They are taken elsewhere so they do not disrupt the recovery of those who are not, where they can wait in safety for a cure."

A shiver ran up her spine. Waiting for a cure…that could mean anything. Not to mention cold cinder blocks and bars weren't exactly reassuring for hopes of a humane treatment.

"You don't happen to know who brought me in, do you?" Yugi asked.

For the first time, the nurse showed a spark of interest.

"Yes, actually, he made quite an uproar." She clicked her pen and slid it into the clip of her board. Her nails were very clean and short, just like her brown hair. "I heard the security cameras showed him dropping down on the helicopter pad out of thin air, completely shirtless, and running down with you. I heard from the nurse on duty up there that he had the most brilliant, strange red eyes that actually glowed, and wild, windswept hair that couldn't seem to decide what color it wanted to be." Her voice took on a whimsical, breathy sort of tone. "And that he didn't let you go until the doctor came. She said he held you so close, and the look on his face…" she let out a little sigh, then seemed to come to herself. "But it was obvious he was one of the infected, but he managed to run off, though no one knows how. I mean, they were on the top floor, and it wasn't like he went downstairs. Went straight off the helicopter pad, I'm told. But then there's these other rumors I heard that in the video he has these big, black wings, and that the police saw a winged monster holding somebody flying off before this unidentified copter came in and…" she gave Yugi an owlish look. "Do you know anything I'm talking about, or is this all just babble?"

Yugi shrugged, and her plasticy pillow crinkled. "Sounds pretty cool, but…yeah, you've lost me. Have they found him yet?"

The nurse echoed Yugi's shrug. "Beats me. But I better continue my rounds. You're the tenth one we've had so far tonight. You've shown the best signs, though." The smile she gave Yugi wasn't as dry as the first. "I'll send someone down with some food, yeah?"

"That would be wonderful," though Yugi didn't feel it.

The nurse left. Yugi looked at the empty blood bag. The shadowed corners of her cell. White. Blue. Line of red from the bag. Not even her own skin had any color to it, and her clothes had been replaced by the usual light blue hospital gown. At least it wasn't the ones that opened up in the back. To break the monotony, she pulled around her hair, which had become snarled and crazy. Black, with purple tips from a dye job on its way out. Yugi found it made a cooler effect if she just dyed the hair that grew in the new color rather than all of it. Joey had been the one to suggest it. For all her struggling in school, Joey had the creative mind of a genius.

 _Joey…_

Yugi wrapped her hands about her middle as it cramped painfully in memory. Still, she couldn't help but think that, if Joey were here, everything would be different. There wouldn't be so much cold, so much numbness, so much helplessness, even if they never made any difference in what happened to them. Joey's pounding on the rails and roaring at the stale air and bricks would have filled Yugi with that same uncontrollable _'you will never tame me.'_

That image of Joey brought tears to her eyes. Had she ever told Joey how beautiful she was?

A thunderous clang begun a snarling, grunting commotion not far from her. Even as Yugi looked up, bemused, another set of nurses followed by three men dressed for the front lines of a war in black dashed back. The noise struck Yugi as only being faintly human, but somehow familiar.

 _Guess they've changed,_ thought Yugi, hugging herself. Would she change like that too? For some reason, that didn't scare her as much as she thought it would. At least Atem would be on the other side of that.

The banging stopped abruptly, and only minutes later the soldiers came back across her door, the arms of a masked and muzzled man locked tightly in their grip. A kind of box like hand cuffs kept his head from moving, but she could still hear the snarls from him. He reappeared some minutes later across from the banister on the other side of the walkway of her cell, going down the center staircase which led deeper down into the jail, stumbling in his blindfolded mess so the men had to half carry, half drag him down. Across the way she saw other people, either patients or criminals, watching from their own cubicles.

No sooner had the new vampire disappeared, then a latch snapped loose somewhere far down the white and blue jail where Yugi couldn't see. The thrum of boots that followed filled the empty, cement abyss like rain upon a tin roof. She slowly sat up.

They were dressed in black war gear just like the other men who had taken the vampire. Any feature that could have distinguished one from the other was hidden beneath masks, Kevlar armor, goggles, and gagets. Half a dozen carrying black rifles passed down the center staircase to the depths before she saw him.

His pale torso stood out like a light in the sea of black. He'd been muzzled, his arms locked behind him in metal, and had the barrel of two guns in his back. His black pants and boots looked worse for wear, and his hair was sticky and disheveled.

But even from her cell she could read the defeated slump of his shoulders and the deadened darkness of his gaze.

An uprush of emotion, like heat, blasted through her. Forgetting everything, she cried out.

"Atem!"

His head jerked towards her. The dead eyes widened.

And then he fell out of sight, down to wherever they had taken the other vampire.


	33. For Security

**Here's the second of two updates today, so be sure not to miss chapter 31. Enjoy!**

Chapter 32

"You don't get much deader than that," said Joey through her teeth, squinting her eyes against the brightening sky.

But Seto had to sift through all the ash with his boot before he was satisfied. The bones hadn't been given the time to burn down, and that would require a proper incinerator to destroy anyways. But, considering the density, he wasn't even sure of that, but Atem had never said the bones had to be destroyed. He had only said the heart and body had to be separated and burned. Even with all the incredible, supernatural phenomena he'd witnessed over the pass six months, Seto found it extremely doubtful that anything could grow back from a heart on an increasingly shrinking beach. Tide was coming in, and salty ocean water was far from embryonic fluid.

"Where'd you throw the heart?" he asked, just in case.

"Like hell I know. I was too busy freaking out."

He only considered searching for it before the pain in his eyes reminded him of coming dawn—and a most likely starving puppy dog behind him.

Thus, with a satisfied grunt, he turned on the spot and started the climb up the steep hillside and through the foliage, trusting her to follow.

Sure enough, a minute later he heard her ask "Have you heard anything about Yugi?"

"It's not like I was keeping tags on her," he said thinly. The shrimp didn't have a cell phone, and it was dubious to Seto that Atem would have kept it after dropping her off at the hospital.

"Can't you, like, call the hospital and ask?"

"There are four hospitals in Domino. I have better things to do than call them up just to sit through all their stupid hoops to find out." Like sleeping. Many much sleeping. Ugh, what a night. Not to mention the lemon wash scentlessness had been replaced with the nauseating stench of burnt, rotten fruit. He was drowning in it.

He felt her hitting his back and assumed it was Joey shoving at him to emphasize her anger at his answer. But then her hands were followed by her breasts and stomach, and he felt more than heard a gut deep growl.

Sighing, he turned. Sure enough, her pupils had dilated despite the brightness of the day and burned almost gold. Her fangs hung in front of a panting, red mouth. But she didn't attack him, as he expected her too. Instead she just pawed his chest, lost, inhuman eyes to his neck like a dog begging for food.

He shivered. Still, despite his initial urge to be repulsed, he lifted her up as he had so many times over the past few days and brought her to his neck, where she nuzzled in and bit down. It didn't even hurt anymore.

 _This isn't normal at all,_ he thought with clenched teeth. He made plans to track down Atem and carried the suckling, mindless Joey back to the helicopter. Mokuba had already fallen asleep in the co-pilot seat. When he started to put Joey back down, she gave a whine, but surprisingly obeyed, her eyes closed and her mouth dyed scarlet. He stared down at her for a second longer before climbing in and shutting the cargo door shut.

The flight back home was a quiet one. Luckily he had some high intensity welding goggles for when the sun rose, but Mokuba scrunched up into a tighter ball against the onslaught. There were various tricky maneuvers to loading up the helicopter in the underground hanger, but by the time he landed Mokuba had woken up, which solved one problem of who he was going to carry in first. It didn't occur to him till later that he didn't need to carry the mutt anywhere. She had legs, didn't she? But since he was nearly inside the mansion already, he ignored it.

Once the pup and Mokuba were tucked away in the same bed, with the cooler of blood within reach of Mokuba, Kaiba yawned, knocked his head a bit, and wandered back to his office to begin the search for a short, spiky-haired vampire.

No sooner had he finished verifying that Yugi's phone was a no go (it went straight to voice mail—old vamp probably didn't even know it needed to be charged), when a buzzer went off on his phone. Groaning and wishing, for not the first time, that all the people on the planet would just blow up, he pushed the button on the blinking line. The line to his security personnel.

"Kaiba."

" _Sir, I apologize for the inconvenience, but the U.S. Military will be at your door in less than a minute. I had no choice but to let them in, under threat of—"_

"I get the idea," he dropped his head to the desk top and ended the call.

Great. Smashing. Brilliant.

But despite his desire to just sit there and screw the world because he was tired, he swiftly got to his feet and ran back to the room that held the sleeping Mokuba and Joey. He wasted no time with pleasantries, yanking Mokuba roughly out of bed. His little brother squawked in indignation, but sobered in an instant.

"Hiding time," said Seto. "Head up the ladder, I'll wake up Joey. Can you take the cooler with you?"

In answer, Mokuba grabbed the cooler and hefted it onto his shoulder, an amazing feet if he had been human considering the red and black cooler was the same size as him and nearly full.

Seto dragged Joey out as well and was relieved to hear a human curse rather than a growl.

"What gives?" she asked, glaring at him blearily.

"You got to hide with Mokuba. Military's at the door most likely on the hunt for vampires."

Joey's eyes widened. "Wha?"

"Come on!" called Mokuba from his walk in closet. Joey shuffled about Seto and towards there, shooting baffled looks over her shoulder.

"You're coming too, right?"

"That would be a bad idea," he said flatly. And indeed, it would be. Without him they'd have no catch, and nothing would stop them from dismantling the whole mansion.

"But why would they—"

"Just get up the ladder and shut up."

Just as he said that, a distant bang echoed through the house.

In the walk in closet filled with clothes and boxes of paraphernalia, a smooth wooden step ladder had slid down from a square opening in the ceiling. Mokuba had already vanished into the darkness beyond with the cooler.

Joey scrabbled up and turned around to peer at him from within the loft.

"But what are they going to do to you?"

"Whatever you do, don't make a sound," was all Seto said, then he reached down for the bottom of the ladder and shoved it up. Joey let out a chirp of surprise as the ladder all but snapped back and a mechanism slid the ceiling back into place, leaving not a single sign that a moment before an opening had been there.

Seto quickly back tracked from the closet, careful to not touch the doorknob and leave prints, and headed for the hallway.

Around the corner came what he tongue-in-cheek labeled as a horde. Personnel in city camouflage flooded about him, looking better prepared for the apocalypse than the confronting of a single CEO. He raised his hands, but needn't have bothered. He was shoved unceremoniously to the ground and cuffed with the strangest pair of handcuffs he'd ever seen. They looked straight out of a sci-fi and encompassed the entirety of his lower arms and hands.

"A little unnecessary, don't you think? Especially given you're the ones who have broken into my home. I assume you have a very, very good reason."

The masked and hooded faces said nothing. But from their masses came a man with marked armor that could only signify a leader of sorts.

"Seto Kaiba, you are being taken in for vampiric infection. You will be quarantined until further notice, as well as your ward, Mokuba Kaiba."

Seto closed his eyes and smirked. It was about time. Whether it was his purchase of enough blood to supply an entire hospital or his long, uncharacteristic absence from work, he knew from the start he wouldn't be able to hide the evidence forever.

So he didn't fight back.


	34. Sound Proof

**Yeah, this is a short chapter, but ya'll got two chapters on Friday so I can be free of guilt. Please let me know what you think of the story so far! Your thoughts are my bread and butter.**

Chapter 33

Even with vampiric night vision, Joey couldn't see a damn thing. She felt shaggy, muffling carpet beneath her as well as Mokuba's still, warm presence at her side. She could smell ages of dust and disuse, as well as the not quite Seto-ish smell of Mokuba's nerves.

For a countless amount of time, they didn't move an inch, listening to the thudding and commotion about the house. When the sound of searching came directly beneath them, Joey's muscles cramped from the force of her fear of making even the smallest noise.

Only once the house had been quiet for upwards to an hour did Joey dare to voice a most dire need.

"I need to pee."

Mokuba finally shifted besides her, as though the whispery words broke a spell.

"There should be a toilet to the right, in a little closet of sorts," he whispered back. I'll get a light.

But Joey's bladder, on hearing a toilet was so near, wouldn't wait for a light. Joey waddle crawled to the right until her head hit a fabric curtain of sorts. A bright, green glow revealed a cotton flap of sorts, but Joey couldn't think about that. She crawled past the fabric, felt out the low, porcelain goddess, and dropped her naked rear down. The sound of pee hitting the bowl was all but nonexistent.

Joey found further evidence of sound proofing when she crawled back out through the flap and saw the foam walls and cushioned shelves of wrapper less food items. A thick green glowstick hung from a hook on the low ceiling. There'd be no standing up here. Mokuba had turned his focus to unrolling a quilt out on what could have only been a foam bed mat. All and all, the short, small room wasn't much bigger than the walk-in closet below them, which Joey realized a moment later would have hidden the existence of the room on a map or blueprint of the mansion. The only way you'd even know it was there was if you carefully measured the walls of the walk-in-closet and matched it with the height of the walls in a blue-print.

When Joey noticed Mokuba messing around with something not foam or shag-carpet covered, he drew near.

"What ya doing, Moki?"

"Gathering recordings from microphones placed around the house," he said quietly. "They start recording the moment the door to here is opened and record the next 24 hours. They should tell us what went on."

Joey gave a low whistle. "Dang. You guys thought of everything."

Mokuba gave her a tight smile, then turned his attention back to the small laptop in his hands.

"There's food for three days," said Mokuba, gesturing towards the shelf. "And basic first aid supplies. Not that they're going to do us any good anymore, but you could always try the human blood again if you get hungry."

Joey looked at the black cooler Mokuba had hauled up with him and grimaced.

"I think I'll pass."

"Then make sure you let me know when you're thirsty," he said, slipping on a pair of headphones. "It'd hate to see what your instincts would make of this place."

Joey didn't want to think about that, because even as he mentioned it, she felt her throat getting that raw, aching feeling. Not to mention sucking on Mokuba was the last thing she wanted to do now.

"So…how long are we holing up?" she asked.

"Until I've heard everything I need to," said Mokuba. "Don't worry, Joey. Whatever happens next, I've got you covered."

Joey snorted and ruffled Mokuba's hair. The younger Kaiba gave her a glare only a hair's breadth of difference from his brother's.

"Those are my words, short stack."


	35. The Science of Atrocity

**Super sorry about the late update again! I thought I'd have my own internet on Monday, but then the internet peeps were really lame and didn't turn it on and then I had to cancel and find someone else and blah blah blah-IT'S HERE NOW! And will be from henceforth because I now have my own internet and I didn't have to sell my soul to do so!**

 **So please, enjoy! And let me know what you think of the story so far, because your thoughts are my bread and butter. For reals.**

Chapter 34

After being left in a dark, cold room of cement and metal for longer than he cared to keep track of, Atem's captor's pulled him back out into the bleaching, artificial light.

Everything after that fulfilled all of Atem's expectations. Needles. Phials of blood. Cold prods of instruments and their measuring filaments. X-rays. Cold exam tables. White masked faces above biohazard white clothing Atem had seen in a surgery room recording once. Fingers without a hint for dignity. Lights as bright as the sun. Black armored bodies. Rifles. Pain.

But after the street of bodies, the terror of it all was lost on him. So Atem just closed his eyes through it all and let it happen, doing as he was told with all the brain power of a mindless drone.

Even with all the metal to trap him, Atem knew he could escape. A single tendril of shadow in the right place and he'd be out. Just one dark room would be enough to veil himself and slip by, unseen. Guards could be downed without a sound. Brick and metal broken. Humans, after all, were so much weaker than vampires.

But he had not the desire. After all, a good part of him work alongside the scientists, poking and prodding and doing whatever test, painful or otherwise, that they willed on his body. Perhaps with all this technology they'd find something. Or, perhaps, they'd realize how to do away with him and do him the honors.

But then he'd think of the pale figure watching him with her shadowed, amethyst eyes.

 _Why did they treat a dying girl in a jail cell?_

It felt wrong. But, then, he could only think of how it was all because of him that she was in there in the first place.

A faceless man tapped Atem's face.

"You still in there? I have a few questions."

Atem grunted, but didn't dare to open his eyes. The surgeon lights were still on him full blast.

"Were you the one who brought in Yugi Mouto? A young girl, very petite, long dyed hair and violet eyes?"

"Yes."

"Were you the one who bit her and put her in her state of hypovolemic shock and hypothermia?"

"No."

"Do you know who did?"

"Yes. He's dead now."

An expected, stunned pause.

"Did you kill him?" Really, Atem felt them friends already. The man's bluntness was refreshing.

"No."

"You do know it won't matter whether or not you lie about that. You were seen by a street full of witnesses murdering seven people."

Atem didn't even flinch. You couldn't be shocked by cold water if you were already in it.

"I know."

"So you didn't kill him?"

"No."

"Do you know who did?"

"Yes."

"Were you there when he died?"

Now that was a tricky question. Getting your head blown off didn't necessarily mean death for a vampire. But then he wasn't there for the burning, so in a way he could be lying about whether Bakura was dead or not. Then Atem decided he didn't care.

"I was there for his disabling, but not for the actual death."

"Then how do you know he is dead?"

Atem said nothing. No matter what happened, he didn't have the right to rat out Kaiba. The kid still had a whole future ahead of him, vampire or not. Also, the slaughter of the ancient vampire who started this mess should have been a paltry matter to a simple murder charge. But, of course, the judiciary system wouldn't see it that way, especially once it was found out that the vampirism disease gave essentially eternal youth and immortality.

His heart gave a little stutter then. But it was just icing to the whole, horrible cake the situation had become.

"Do you know who he was?" the man asked.

Atem glanced at the one way glass in the small exam room, lazily wondering for the uptenth time what those behind the glass could be thinking.

"Oh, just a thousand year old vampire who discovered he could sniff out the people who'd turn if bitten. Sort of started this all."

Oh yeah. He could practically feel the static coming off him. The man's dark brown eyes sparked above the white surgeon's mask.

Hopelessly amused, Atem went into telling how he had come around to know this and the events that led up to it. It was almost relaxing, just talking with his eyes closed. He couldn't help but remember walking besides Yugi and talking to her with a basket full of herbs. She was in the forefront of his mind as he carefully left out any inkling that should could be anything more than just a wandering stranger Bakura had decided to pick up and Atem try to rescue.

Keeping Seto Kaiba out of the picture, however, was much more difficult. When he straight out refused to reveal the identity of his 'accomplice,' insisting he'd never killed anyone, his interviewer showed the first signs of impatience. Rather than press him, though, he moved onto other topics, namely Atem's wings.

"Can you fly?" he asked.

"More or less."

"Where are your wings?"

"Somewhere you can't get them," because the moment the man had asked, images of his delicate wings being sliced apart and disconnected from his body had filled his mind, and Atem had a sudden urge of defiance to keep at least part of himself free from their uncaring hands. He was there to die, after all, and there was nothing they could do to make him push them out.

Which he went on to prove in the next few hours as the needles, hands, and scalpels went at his back. Though they had known of a vampire's healing ability already, they had been nothing short of awestruck when they discovered how quickly Atem healed. The older a vampire got, the more efficient his body became, and since Atem was most likely the oldest vampire they had on hand by at least 200 years, there was a lot to be impressed by. Unfortunately, that meant they had no hesitation about slicing and peeling back layers of skin and flesh, despite his grunts and screams. It would heal as soon as they let go, after all.

After what could have been days of such treatment, without any sign of relief, his blood thirst had risen to an angry tension in the front of his skull and throat.

But even that turned out to be a test.

"He's still coherent," said another faceless practitioner of his torture, flicking a pen before Atem's eyes. "That's fifty six hours longer than any other specimen."

But no matter how hard they pressed or how deeply they cut, he would not tell them the truth about Seto, Yugi, his wings, and (perhaps a futile attempt on his hand), his own age. He was already regretting admitting that Bakura had been at least a millennium old, hoping they'd wrap it up as him exaggerating. He told them the age he was when he turned, 24, and hoped they believed a year or so was enough to give him so much endurance atop of others.

When he was finally returned to the dark room, his lower arms had become raw from the all encompassing cuffs and his throat had become a pillar of fire. Despite the pain, he fell asleep the moment he hit the floor.

Perhaps it was a desperate attempt on his subconscious part at relief, but he dreamed of Yugi in her borrowed hijab.

He woke up with a start when the monster within him made an attack on his consciousness.

With clenched teeth, he fought it back. If he had been left in peace, he could have gone for a week without feeling the scratches of the beast of his instincts. Even then he would have had the mind enough to find an animal or a blood clinic his shadows could sneak into. Not so with this.

As he squeezed his eyes till he thought they'd jab back into his brain, he wondered why he even tried. These people were prepared for him, weren't they? It was only his shadows that had made escaping possible, and as far as he knew, his feral mind hadn't the coherency to concentrate shadows. It would be so easy just to let go and slip into the madness. It would be a blessed release.

Yet still, he found himself holding back, frightened. Hot tears leaked from beneath his lashes, tickled partway down his cheeks, then fell to the cold floor below.

"Yugi," he gasped, not knowing why it was her name, but breathless with the pain. "Yugi. I wanted to know you. I wanted to see all your faces. I wanted…"

He wanted so bad his lungs seized. His muscles locked in on himself.

It was sobbing and struggling for breath that the light spilling from the open door found him as. As he squinted against the light, somebody tall was shoved in and the door was shut once more. Some blinking later, Atem found himself on his knees, gaping.

Kneeling next to him in the dark, cinder block cell, bound much the same way as he and wearing the same, cheap, ugly hospital gear, was none other than Seto Kaiba.

They stared at each other. Atem raised an eyebrow. Seto had the red mark around his face from where the muzzle had been. They had removed it before pushing him in here, as they had to Atem.

"What are you doing here?" Seto asked.

"I could ask you the same thing. What, did they catch you burning a body?"

"Broke into my house, actually."

Atem nodded. "Joey? Your brother?" He held no ill will against the kid as it was.

Kaiba frowned and shook his head sharply. Atem gave him a questioning jerk of his chin, but Seto just continued to shake his head, gesturing around with his eyes.

Ah. So he was afraid he was being over heard.

So Atem obliged him. "Sorry to hear that. Though, disclaimer, I didn't tell them anything about you."

"Might as well have. They had enough evidence without it." Kaiba groaned softly as he pulled his legs around and rested against a wall, wriggling his shoulders to find a comfortable position.

For a few minutes they sat in quiet. Atem couldn't exactly call himself glad, but as he covertly sniffed and turned his head towards the shadows, he had to admit it was good to not be alone. At least it gave him a distraction from the despair.

"Since we're here, could you give me some more coaching on that shadow stuff?"

Atem sighed. "I don't know what else to tell you that I already have. It's not like I can see into your head to see if you're doing it right."

"Then just keep your eyes open for results." Kaiba closed his eyes, mouth thin and pursed.

Easier said than done. Atem still had his thirst to contend with for his consciousness, but it wasn't like he had any options. Even if he did give in now, his instincts would have nothing to do with another vampire's blood.

In the end, Atem settled for biting his arm and doing as Kaiba asked until his vision clouded over and he knew no more.


	36. The Little Tamer

**Yay! On Time! Muwahaha.**

Chapter 35

They brought her a TV to watch on a portable trolley, even an old, but carefully tended Nintendo 64 with a dozen or so games. She also got a box of horror and mystery novels when she told them the kind of books she liked to read. The food wasn't spectacular, but it tasted all right, and the small nurse with the clean, short brown hair would come by often to ask if she wanted a snack. Yugi was given iron pills and medication to help with their digestion in order to build her blood back up, and she even got a quilt and her favorite stuffed bunny from home along with a letter from her mother and grandpa conveying their general worry and hopes that she'll get better.

But they weren't allowed to visit. 'Too dangerous,' said her clean cut nurse. Yet her only explanation as to why Yugi hadn't been released yet was 'the doctor still has some tests he wants to run.'

Ah yes. The balding, bony man who came in to pinch her skin, take her blood, and peer into all manners of crooks and crannies on her. He tapped her teeth, took samples of her cheek cells, shone lights in her eyes, and even, at one point, gave her a quick cut with his scapel. At Yugi's reproachful look, he just said something in his reedy voice about testing her healing process, though that didn't ease the pain when he strapped her arm beneath some sort of microscope and made her sleep like that for the rest of the night.

Yugi had begun to miss the numbness she had grown use to as fear set in. It got difficult to eat, to sleep, and her hands didn't seem to ever stop shaking. She dove more and more often into the living dream of Joey sitting beside's her. As four days became five, she even imagined her grandpa and mother sitting there, telling her to be grateful that she was being taken care of and kept safe.

Just as she imagined that, though, her mother and grandpa were replaced by Atem, frumpy and lax as he had been in his apartment. He gave her that soft smile that softened the sharp like lines of his face.

" _I can't let you leave,_ " he echoed from another time. " _But I swear I mean you no harm, and I won't let any harm come to you. I just need your help."_

Out of all her imaginary visitors, Atem was the only one nearby. Even only a floor or so beneath her, trapped as she was.

That thought sent her back into the spirals of anxieties that had taken hold when she saw him taken down below. Was he even still alive? What kind of 'tests' had they made him live through? To what end did they intend for him? And why did she even care? Hadn't he kidnapped her? Used her?

And then she'd see him sitting on the toilet seat across from her bed, leaning on his knees, that soft smile on his face again. She could even begin to believe that she could smell the lemon and sage scent off of him.

" _I'm sorry, Little One,"_ the image whispered. " _I'm so, so sorry. Let me fix what I've done."_

Her cell door opened with a clang. She jumped and blinked the images away. Another person accompanied her doctor today, someone just as lean, but younger, with an air like complimentary peppermints on a pile of unpaid receipts.

"Yugi Muto," he said in a voice so clear and resounding it made her reedy doctor sound like a wheeze. "My name is Denno and I just wanted to drop by and visit our most famous patient. How are you feeling?"

Yugi said nothing, afraid she might say something rude.

But he just smiled and nodded, as though he understood, then reached out to pat her hand, which had been resting besides her on the bed. "You're almost ready to go, Yugi, I just have a few more questions I'd like to ask before we take you downstairs for some X-rays and whatnot. First off, is there anything we can get you for being such a good girl?"

Yugi bristled. This again? Why did so many people talk to her like she was eight? She was sixteen, for crying out loud!

"A shower, might be nice," she said instead. "With some shampoo and conditioner."

He bobbed his head again. "Can do, can do. Second, could you tell me anything about your father? His name isn't listed on your birth certificate and your mother can't seem to tell us much about him either."

Yugi shook her head. "He left before I was born. I don't even think he knows I exist."

"She said as much," more bobbing of his head. Even his smile was beginning to remind her of cheap peppermints. She hated peppermint. "Lastly, have you ever noticed anything different about yourself compared to others? Maybe your classmates? Anything you've been bullied over in the past?"

This would be a strange question if she wasn't being asked in a jail full of vampires.

"Other than being short for my age and, well, not particularly outgoing," she shrugged. "I've got purple eyes, that's something."

"As we've noticed. Quite rare, and very pretty. I guess that's all I have. Do you have any questions?"

She jumped forward. "Do you know why I'm still being kept here?"

"Didn't they say? There's still some tests we're waiting on. Also, you're one of the few who didn't get infected, so we've been studying the resistance of your body in hopes of creating a cure for those less fortunate." He bobbed his head again. "Shall we, then?"

It wasn't like she had much of a choice. She was, more or less, their prisoner, no matter what pretty words they used to say otherwise.

Still, she all but ran from the cell, her heart skipping as she found herself being led towards the middle staircase, the same Atem had been taken down. She was even able to push aside the uncomfortable feeling of having both her doctor and the peppermint man keeping step with her so closely, their arms frequently brushed.

There wasn't much different with the layout of this floor compared to the one upstairs. The biggest difference had to be the lack of tiny windows near the much lower ceiling. Other than that, there were cells of beds, sinks, and toilets, each filled with an occupant. Most wore the same scrubs that she wore, some even the empty, back sided hospital gowns. A few paced, others slept, and a few curled up near the back much as she had.

As her feet hit the cement floor, however, the heads that were visible snapped in her direction, eyes dark and wide.

Yugi stalled, breath catching.

"Don't mind them," said peppermint man. "They can't hurt you. It isn't like you're the only non-infected in the building."

 _Vampires?_ She wondered, daring to look closer. But there wasn't much she could see from her distance that could differentiate one from a human.

Still, she thought the air had become just a little bit colder.

They went down yet another level to a narrow hallway of the same bleaching, white painted cinderblock walls. Her bare feet had gone numb from cold and she could feel the prickled hairs on her legs bristling against each other as she walked. Some turns later, past two security gates she thought only existed in movies, and then she was down another cold, bleaching hall, this one with metal doors on each side. They had little viewing windows in each one, but they had been taped over with black tape.

As though reading her thoughts, the peppermint doctor tapped one of the taped over windows.

"To ensure our guest's comfort," he said.

Yugi shivered. "What's the difference between these vampires and the ones upstairs?"

"Vampire isn't correct. They are simply sick. Very sick."

She refrained from rolling her eyes and waited for him to answer.

"The one's down here are rather…high profile? They have differentiated themselves from those upstairs by exhibiting traits that make them more dangerous or rather unique traits. For example, there's one young lady with the strength to tear open the bars of the average cell like warm rubber. Another fellow wouldn't stop screaming that he couldn't see, despite all the lights being off. Like any disease—"

The doctor stopped abruptly. Yugi didn't have to ask why.

They had turned a corner, and near the end of the hallway a pair of guards were just opening a door.

"Stop!" the doctor shouted. "We have a non infected—"

A blurr of flesh and black collided into a guard, smashing him against the wall. Red splashed up the bleaching white.

Yugi was running before she knew why.

A gun fired, the thunder bursting her ears with pain. The vampire had his hands bound by the metal box behind his back, but it didn't stop him as he tore loose from the man beneath him and hissed at the guard that had shot him, fangs wide and exposed like a venomous snakes and red eyes bulbously wide.

She almost stopped then, never having seen Atem so…monstrous before. A wild scream of horror inflated her chest as she wondered how she had ever seen anything remotely human in him.

But, strangely, just like when she was jump scared by a video game, she pushed through it, almost mechanically so. She flew between the guard and him and lifted up an arm.

Atem had his teeth in it before she had even drawn breath.

And before her eyes, the monster melted away. Long, dark lashes closed over the popping eyes, the coiled muscles beneath his pale skin softened, his shoulders went lax. The hands that had snatched at her like dragon claws loosened and gently wrapped about her waist.

And over his slumped back she could see the first guard he had attacked pushing himself up, trembling like crazy and covered with his own blood, but alive.

"You idiots deserved that for not listening to me," said a familiar dry voice.

The second guard, still stunned from being saved by a girl half his size, could only manage to gargle a protest as shirtless Seto Kaiba stepped out from the darkness, his hands bound behind him with the same metal contraption as Atem. A flash of alarm crossed his blue eyes at the sight of Yugi.

Before anyone could do anything to save her, however, Atem gave a soft, almost inaudible moan, followed by a sudden stiffening and snapping back from Yugi's arm so quick, she let out a cry of pain only to find her vision had clouded and her knees gone weak.

"Yugi?!" His lips were dyed red and blood splashed down his chin and neck. Light headed, she could only register how wonderfully warm his body was pressed up against hers. Mean doctors. Making her come down here without even socks or pants. So cold.

She found her arms heavy as she reached out to trace his face, just to verify to herself that the monster was gone.

The next thing she knew, she was crushed against his chest (not unhappily so), and said chest burst her eardrums again with a roar.

"WHY THE HELL IS SHE DOWN HERE?!"


	37. Away to the Dark

**Sorry about that! Accidentally put up that latest chapter of another story rather than this one. But never fear! I have it! They were both in the Doc Manager and just both started with a B and I'm hungry and stupid, so yeah...but I fixed! I fixed!**

Chapter 36

In less time than a breath, any shock, and depression and docile defeat, were done away with by a burning, ravenous rage. He hardly felt the remains of his hunger scratching at his heels like an annoying dog.

"I brought her to you to save her and this is what you do? Throw her in a den of blood thirsty monsters?" It wasn't that he couldn't roar at this point, but that he was too angry to breathe deep enough for it. As he curled her weak, cold body to his chest, he forced himself to take a hungry gasp. "You were supposed to make her better then take her home like _damn decent human beings!_ WHY THE HELL IS SHE STILL HERE!"

For the first time, he found his concentration for the shadows sharpened by his fury and five, not two, tendrils of shadows ran to his call. One coiled inside the darkness of his cuffs and snapped them open. The other four snapped about the necks of the white coats and the stupid, flummoxed security guard who couldn't even manage to raise his rifle. Useless.

He lifted the doctors, the unfortunate nurse, the security guard, with the ease of a roar and slammed them against the too-white walls.

Out of the corner of his eye, Seto Kaiba watched.

"She's hardly better than when I brought her here, and that was before I had my unfortunate share, and what for? Did you throw her in front of me? Trying to save your own god damn lives?"

"If you're done ranting—"

He hadn't asked the kid. Another tendril snapped out from the shadows and twisted tight about his chest. Several more, uncontrolled outcroppings of blackness shot out. Glass shattered. Lights went out.

For the first time in his three hundred years, Atem wanted to kill. This wasn't the time for the humans to act like curious scientists from a badly written sci-fi wrongly torturing people in the name of science. People were dying, or worse, being damned as forever murderers for the rest of their endless lives.

Though it didn't escape Atem that he hadn't cared or thought any of this just moments ago when he hadn't been crazed with hunger.

"You are going to treat this girl properly this time. I don't care how low you are on blood, you will give it to her and then send her home or every person in this facility is dead." He tightened the shadows, watched their eyes pop. Just for added effect he pushed out his wings and let them fill the narrow hallway.

Movement caught his eye. The down security guard had managed to crawl over to his gun and moved to aim it at him. Atem kicked it out of his hands and stomped down on his chest.

His miraculous dexterity over his shadows was waning now that he had control over the situation. But he let no sign of it show as he dropped the three medical looking figures down first and allowed the their shadows to dissipate. He also let Kaiba go, as he figured the kid had gotten the message.

As he waited for the three doctors to finish coughing and catching their breaths, Kaiba stepped up to him as though he hadn't just been wrangled by Atem a moment before. Kaiba also managed to look very unimpressed, even exasperated.

"Cameras." He pointed to the end of the hall.

All that remained of the little black box had been shattered. Atem got the point though. It wouldn't go unnoticed.

But it wasn't just the cameras Kaiba was pointing out. As Atem met those still humanly blue eyes, his brain caught up with him. There was no going back now that he had shown them the extent of what he could do and how easily he could break through their high security. Atem wasn't just a dangerous monster anymore.

And Yugi was no longer a helpless bystander.

He had been utterly stupid expecting these men to just adhere to his demands. Armed men would be pouring in any second now, ready to overwhelm them, ready to take Yugi and stuff her down even deeper for their questions and use—

And just like that, his panicked thinking cleared to crystal clarity. He could hear Yugi's fluttering heart rate, see just how purple the thin skin around her eyes and mouth had become. Her little body had been drained one too many times.

"Move," he growled at the downed men, stomping forward.

"Am I walking into something that will get me killed?" asked the younger vampire.

Frankly, Atem didn't care what the boy did. Time was of an essence. The doctor's scrambled to their feet and Atem had the foot the nurse over just to discover she had passed out. Forcing the security guard still in his shadows grip to follow, he marched the doctors forward, wings outheld as much as they could go in the little area to give him as much intimidation factor as possible. Let them think he a horrid demon from their worst nightmares come to life.

"Your most secure medical bay, now."

Thankfully, they didn't bother to protest. Both the balding, thin man and the clean cut, salt and pepper one scrambled to their feet and did a sort of side backwards jog as they tried to keep an eye on him and lead as fast as they could at the same time.

It wasn't far, even on the same level. Even so, by the time the gray, younger doctor started swiping his card through a door handle, Atem could hear a distant wail of an alarm and the foreboding tapping of boots.

The door opened. The doctors scuttled in, Atem on their heels, the unfortunate security guard all but dragged in by the lone tendril of shadow. Just as Atem reached to slam the door shut, Kaiba slipped in and did it for him, twisting the lock on the door bar.

"Don't make me regret this, old man," he dared to growl.

But Atem was preoccupied by the sudden faintness of the girl's heartbeat against his arms. Wrapping his wings about her as though to shield her from the surgeons table and the various medical paraphernalia and machinery about him, he turned on the doctors, teeth bared.

"Well?"

The younger doctor suddenly seized up, hands scrunched up against his rip cage like a squirrels, but the second, aged doctor was already in motion, yanking out silver coolers and pulling down plastic bags of tubes and whatnot. The bags of blood he pulled out instantly became dewy on hitting the warmer air, and Atem felt his throat tighten. He inwardly snarled at it, furious that his thirst could even exist at a time like this.

"Lay her down," said the balding man in a quavering voice.

"She's freezing," Atem said the moment he realized he wouldn't be able to let go.

His opinion of the doctor grew as the man didn't argue, only telling him to hold her out and demonstrating an admirable calmness as he tied a rubber band about her arm.

As the seconds grew into minutes as the doctor tried to find her vein and flicked her arm, Atem's apprehension severed the last hold he had on the shadows and the security guard flopped to the floor. No sooner had the man flung himself at the door lock and brought the walkie talkie to his mouth than Kaiba was on him with a knee to the gut. The CEO knocked the walkie talkie from his hand, locked his arms behind his back, and then, without hesitation, leaned down to put his mouth to the man's neck.

The other doctor gave an almost feminine squawk. The doctor at Yugi's arm jerked as though to look up, but must have thought better of it and kept his eyes to her arm. Only a second later he found what he was looking for and pinched the IV into a thin, purple vein. With deft hands he then twisted on the tube, hooked it to one of the bags, and then hung it on a IV pole he had hooked over with his foot.

"Don't jostle it," he told Atem, then, after only a moment of hesitation, he reached out a pair of fingers into the folds of Atem's enclosed wings and pressed them to her neck. The crow's feet at the corner of his eyes tightened as he counted. After thirty seconds, he quickly pulled away and brought up some gause he had brought over. "Would you mind holding this on her arm while I get some antiseptic?"

Outside the door, the tapping of boots had grown to a roar like crashing water. A loud crash made everyone jump.

"Camera," came Seto's muffled voice.

"Open up!" shouted a man from the other side.

Atem tuned out whatever threats they had to say as he turned his attention to keeping Yugi warm and her IV unjostled. It took all his self control not to knock the bottle of rubbing alcohol from the doctors hand when he brought it to disinfect Yugi's wound. Atem could have done so much better. His poultices cleaned and healed a wound faster than any alcohol or filmy gauze they had. Alcohol may help prevent infection, but it also hindered the healing process as it killed off the very bacteria that assisted in it.

But then he reminded himself who put those holes in her arm in the first place.

From behind him, Kaiba had gotten back to his feet. "Where's you're computer?"

"Th-they'll open fire on the door any second—"

"And I'll bite off your head if you don't slow them down and tell me where your computer is."

Atem felt his mouth twitch in a smile.

But it was once more the older doctor who rose to the occasion. His reedy voice was barely heard under the barrage of pounding on the door.

"In the far corner under the plastic," then the reed turned shrill. "STOP OR THEY'LL KILL DOCTOR YASLEY!"

Said Yasley must have been the name of the useless, prettier doctor, for he flinched and gave the other man a betrayed stare.

As Seto hollered a threat to back up that same statement, pulling away plastic all the while, Atem's attention continued to narrow down to the fluttering heartbeat he could feel against his bicep. Sliding onto the surgery table, he curled in around her, wings and all, imagining he could block out all the noise, the chaos, the lights.

Only then did he let the violent trembling overtake him. Only then did the icy fear, black and acidic, eat away at his innards.

"Why did I ever come near you, little one," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut against it all.

So cold. He remembered her being so warm. All her gentle curves and softness and fit so well in place against him and all his knobby corners back in the day he had slept beside her. Her eyes had been so bright when she had looked down that alleyway, strawberry ice cream across her toes. Her fingers had been gentle, her smile forgiving when he had no place to be forgiven.

A gentle, gravely sort of murmur from outside his wings drew him up from the depths.

"If you could escape all along, why didn't you?"

And because the doctor had so quickly and readily attended to Yugi, Atem answered, even though he knew his voice would betray just how shaken he was.

"I was hoping you'd kill me. I've found out the hard way that trying to kill myself only ends up getting people killed."

"You never once thought we could find a cure?"

Atem let out a short, bitter laugh that was more like a gasp. "I'm a doctor of sorts myself and in…all my years of study and travel I've found nothing."

The doctor paused before saying, "You're a lot older than 24, aren't you?"

Atem let his silence answer that.

Suddenly, all light vanished. Pitch black as Atem, with his sensitive eyes, had rarely known blanketed them.

"Ha!" barked Kaiba. "Freaking everything is digital nowadays."

Outside the door their aggressors let out shouts of alarm. Sharp pattering of bullets clicked against the door. The pansy doctor screamed and dropped to the floor.

But Atem lifted up his head, eyes opening wide. There was nothing but shadow now, pressing in like miles of ocean water, aware of him without conscious thought of its own awareness.

"Think you can use that, old man?" shouted Kaiba above the noise.

"Yes," said Atem, his voice once more strong and sure. No longer would he have to force shadow against its nature and into the light. No longer would he need his sight or senses to feel it out, or concentration to hold it in form.

It was already here.

"Meet you outside?" Kaiba asked.

Atem nodded before realizing the kid couldn't see him. "See you then."

And with that, he reached out to the darkness embracing him and pulled it in.


	38. Skylight

**Since this chapter is very short, I will be a proper, merciful author to my readers and update another chapter later today. So please, shower me with gratitude in the form of reviews...or don't...and leave me all achey and empty and needy because I'm pathetic like that.**

Chapter 37

The darkness brought him to a more primitive state, and as the stretch of his pupils expanding as far as they could go sucked in the black, even his nostrils seemed blooded for the run. Outlines in the pitch black came to him—and he could see—and with it came the mind spinning instincts that hunched him down and sent him running towards the door with Atem. He couldn't see the shadows, though. Only the door opening on its own, the black bodies heavy with the ripe aroma of meat, of teeth, of power.

Fear, he realized. This sweet, heady scent like ripe fruit beneath the sun was fear.

His lips curled back. His gums itched, and fangs brushed his bottom lips. His throat felt hot in a pleasant sort of pain, like a massage on sore muscles. Each breath brought it deeper.

Then something unseen wrapped about his waist and dragged him through the crowd. Atem's red eyes drank him in, narrow, disapproving.

"So young," he whispered, or sighed.

Then Seto Kaiba found himself again and fell into a run. The colorless shadows withdrew from his waist. Sounds of boots and yells and the rustle of Kevlar bodies reached out to him, but the only ones who could see were the vampires. Seto found himself needing to move faster than he'd ever dare before in order to just keep up with the older vampire, and the ease in which his legs sprung him up stairs and swung him about corners threatened to bring the addictive wildness back to his lungs.

The next floor brought with it a waft of cold and an entirely new scent. Sweet fear turned sour, rotten, and a cold chill cooled whatever heat had been left in his throat. It was like body odor, old socks, a bed overdue to be made. Underneath it he caught the now familiar rotten fruit scent of his own kind, and suddenly understood what this odor was. After all, he wasn't the only predator in the building to smell the human's fear.

Suddenly, bars snapped over the double doors. The clang of more bars dropping cracked across the vast expanse of the jail. A wild roar came from the rotton fruit scented cells.

"Atem—" he started, just to be cut off as Atem took a running leap, spread the giant wings that had been folded against his back like an oversized trenchcoat, and shot straight up to a clouded skylight that had been taking it's time barring up. Afterall, what human could reach that height?

Seto's mouth went dry.

But he moved all the same, sprinting towards the nearest wall of cells and launching himself up the wall. His long limbs served him well, and his extended strength shot him up one story, then two, then—

"Kaiba!"

Holding himself to the railing of the third story line of cells by a foot and hand, he twisted back. Atem's hand hung below the skylight, legs and fist keeping the bars from closing, shattered, opaque glass splattered along the floor below.

Seto jumped to the top of the railing, crouched, then let go as he sprung out for the hand—

The lights flashed on. The world flashed white, spiking pain through his skull. Fingers brushed his wrist—claws bit. He let out a shout of pain as the claws dug deeper to the bone, weighted by his body.

Thunder cracked the air. Fire pierced his legs, his chest—

The claws slip. His insides flew to his mouth as the rest of him fell.

Then the hard concrete knocked out whatever made Seto, leaving only agony and a chaos of senses and hungers that took up the space where thought had once been.


	39. Bloodless

**As promise, second update.**

Chapter 38

Atem's spirit stayed awkwardly held up between the grinding bars and the glassless window frame. It screamed as Kaiba's bloodied wrist slipped from his grasp. It dropped in and caught him again, for better or for worse.

But his three hundred years of cold insistence snapped him out of the window, allowing the squealing motor to shut the bars the rest of the way, and snatched back the little Yugi. He cloaked himself in shadows thicker than ever and took to the sky, even as sun-like spotlights switched on and lifted to the sky like the great, searching eyes of a leviathan. He didn't waste time climbing, but shot out far from the penitary's boundaries. Only when the city's lights reach for him did he start to climb. Only when his back started to protest and his skin hardened with cold did he stop, attention abruptly to the girl in his arms. He gently put his fingerpads to her neck. A warbling, too fast heartbeat pattered against them.

He couldn't stay up here long. She couldn't.

After only a moment's debate, he garnered his location and pointed himself towards home.

Countless nights before had he flown this way, thoughts only to his safe, warm apartment. The inattention of humans and their modern culture of moving had kept his agelessness safe for a remarkably long time. It didn't escape him the miracle his ability to call someplace home and work his practice was.

Even so, an aching longing fisted in his chest as he silently touched down on his tiny landing. His aching wings withdrew into his flesh with shivers of relief. Someone had been kind enough to lock his door. He found the key in the gutter and elbowed himself in. Only then did he drop his shadowing cover and lock the door behind him. In a few steps he had the pale little Yugi in his bean bag, with the arm with her IV propped up and laid out straight. He pulled a thumbtack from the corner of his window, where he stored them whenever he found them on the floor, and pinned the blood bag to the wall. He checked the tube for kinks, threw some velvet bags of rice into the microwave for warming, then dropped down to take her vitals.

Despite the bag already being half empty, her rapid heartbeat didn't slow. If anything, it had increased as her heart struggled to keep blood circling through her body. Her lips still had that gray white tinge, and as he held the back of his hand to her mouth, the puffs of air were light, shallow, and weak.

She was dying.

He had watched others die like this whenever the monster had pulled him in just a moment too soon and he woke up before they'd stopped breathing. He'd weakly tended to soldiers, thick with shock, bleed out their last. He'd been by his mother's side when, once, a young mother bleed to death shortly after giving birth.

Seeing those familiar signs in the girl who had only days before smiled as she allowed him to hold her as he slept made the reality of it super imposing, as though the rest of his life had been a dream or a drunk daze.

His brain exploded with life, buzzing so quickly he could barely keep up.

 _If she has vampire blood, the human blood will be too diluted to help. Her body will have been adapted to work with the highly concentrated, nutrient dense vampiric blood—it wasn't—blood type? What had her blood tasted of—type—_

He found it and dug his teeth into his arm. Stomach turning rust and rot caked his tongue, but he forced down the gag reflex, forced himself to taste deeper for type, type—

 _Yes!_

He jumped to his pantry. A jar of preserved thyme crashed as he yanked out the container of plastic wrapped needles. He already had one out and in his own vein when he jumped back to the blood bag thumbtacked to the wall. The tube came out with a stick pop, then onto the other end of the IV in his arm.

 _Let this work, let this work, it has to work._

His too fast thoughts fed him facts he didn't want to think about: if his thick blood would diffuse as quick as normal blood; if it was too late; if her body would accept straight vampiric blood; if she would die—she would die, tiny, cold, chapped blue lips parted as though asleep—

Though his knees knocked into each other, and a hysteric wail gathered at the back of his tongue, he kept upright to add gravity to pushing his blood into Yugi's beneath him.

The bright red human blood quickly turned to dark maroon.

 _What if she doesn't wake up? What if it takes too much and my instincts take over? What if she—_

 _She's dying. She's dying. She might be already dead, just reach down-_

"SHUT UP!" The scream didn't even sound like him.

Tears blurred his vision more quickly than jumping into a lake would have. His throat kept sticking up, forcing him to breath in clumpy gasps.

 _You've taken too much. Her organs will already be damaged beyond repair from going this far. First kidneys, then intestines—cells suffocating by the trillions—_

Diagrams of all the books he had read on cellular metabolism and ATP processing rushed through his mind's eye at lightning speeds.

"Shut up!" he hadn't the breath. It came out a gasp. " _Yugi."_

He had to hold her. He had to feel her heartbeat. But he had to stay standing. If there was any chance, any hope—but she would be freezing—then he remembered the rice bags sitting in the microwave and cursed. There could be no going now. He couldn't risk upsetting his needle and getting it clogged. But he had only thrown a blanket on her, he had only—

"Yugi," he gasped. "Yugi. Yugi."


	40. A Percolating of Demons

**Since I'm not sure if this chapter is long enough to satisfy my promise that I wouldn't make any short chapters, I'll be updating another chapter tomorrow morning. ^.^ Please enjoy. And no, I wasn't getting writer's block. I don't really get writer's block all that often. It's sort of a rare moon sort of thing.**

39

For the second time in his life, Seto came to with someone's throat in his mouth. With a thrill of disgusted panic, he yanked his teeth free and tossed aside the body, visions of Mokuba's limp body flashing before him, every nerve on end screaming—

But it wasn't Mokuba who flopped lifelessly to the ground, but a black armored security guard with a neatly trimmed black beard that was at odds with his deathly grey-white skin.

Gasping, he stumbled back. Realizing the red, sweet wetness on his shirt as blood, he frantically scraped it off his back and chucked it as far as he could—and it soared over a plain of scattered, black armored and medical scrubbed bodies. Others like Seto hunched over some of these bodies, faces nuzzled to the jugular, or pressing prey against the walls. Some shifted among the dead, nibbling on wrists and licking at oozing necks, hoping for more.

Seto's back hit the bars of an open cell, hitting the door closed with an earth shattering clang. Dozens of variously shaded, glowing eyes snapped up to him, then back down to their meals.

He felt his stomach roll and prayed that he'd throw up. He wanted to throw up. Get all that disgusting, warm death out of him. But his insides refused to give up their precious catch, and even as he stood there, heart hammering, screaming inside to the point he couldn't hear a thing, he could feel his instincts purr with satiated satisfaction.

He looked up to the skylight that he fell out of to see he lower brick ceiling. Somehow, he'd gotten back down to a lower level—the second level, with all the vampires. How they had gotten out, he didn't know. The last thing he remembered was falling through gunfire.

A flash of platinum blond jerked his attention away, where a thin, average height young man had his arm around a young woman. She had huddled against a column and looked much the same way as Seto felt, with blood staining her chin and shirt. There was something vaguely familiar about him in the way his shoulders somehow stayed straight and sure even while he was bent over someone else, or perhaps the wild spikes his thick mane of white-blond hair made. The tips at the end had been dyed red and sticky with blood. A fair color like that would.

As though sensing his eyes, he looked up. Seto's heart jumped to his throat so hard it nearly escaped from his mouth.

They were black. Black as night, with thin, dark red circles for the irises.

But it wasn't the same ancient vampire that Joey had torn the heart of. This was a completely different person, but with the same features as Atem that hinted at middle eastern ancestry without the dark skin. The hair was more golden rather than bone white and wild.

Blood tipped. Wild hair.

The man straightened and came his way. Seto tensed and out of habit schooled his features into the cool mask that had become his default since the day he'd entered into the cut-throat world of the business elite. Whoever this man was, he wouldn't get a single detail of any thought, feeling, or weakness of Seto's. He would be in control.

The quiet, gentle voice that came once he drew near, however, threw Seto off guard.

"I noticed you weren't reacting as well either," he said, even lowering his eyes to the ground as though knowing how unnatural they were. "Please, rest assured, none of this is your fault. You didn't murder them. The monster within you did."

"I don't need your comfort," Seto responded, quickly drawing back into his guard. "Though I do have a few questions as to how all this happened."

"While the electricity was out, the locks on the high security cells in the basement went out and I, among a few others, managed to escape." The man hesitated. "I don't really…remember anything after that. My condition is a bit rare, I suppose, though probably not for our kind that is as old as I am."

 _Perhaps that explains the eyes,_ Seto thought, even as he folded his arms across his chest.

"If you want to escape, I'd do so now. This prison isn't going to be unwatched for long," said Seto.

"Oh, I know. Some have already left. I'm just seeing to the young ones, such as yourself. Though," the black eyes fluttered up and down Seto so quickly it could have been a black fly zipping past. "You're a bit old to be having this response. Six, seven months, at the most." He gave a quick sniff. "You don't have any physical talents to speak of either…have you been hungry all this time?"

"Yes, because I'm going to answer all the personal questions of a black eyed stranger while surrounded by dead bodies."

The man's mouth twitched. "I'd be a bit more careful, if I were you. Provoke me and I may be forced to leave."

"That sounds like an invitation."

"And you won't like who replaces me. As I said," he looked up at Seto now unflinching, showing that he had never been concerned about what Seto thought of him in the first place. "I have a condition."

They stared at each other for a moment longer before the strange, older vampire smiled and straightened his shirt, which hadn't a speck of blood on it, despite the red on the tips of his hair.

"Be careful out there, young one. All is about to get rather chaotic. I must see to your younger kin, now, so perhaps I will see you again out there. Those without physical talents tend to show the most interesting gifts."

And with that, he walked away towards others who had also hunched up against the walls, much as the young woman had before. Seto watched his back, which hadn't been as untouched by his front as the red-soaked tips of his hair brushed across it. Even so, there was a rolling grace to his steps that kept his hair from moving much, despite its length.

Another tickle of familiarity crept across the back of his mind.

But Seto didn't have time to stare until he figured out where exactly he had seen this new, ancient vampire. After all, he couldn't afford to wait around and see what happened to any vampires fool enough to remain when the marines moved in. And though bullets wouldn't kill him, Seto also wasn't too fond of the idea of waking up with some dead person's neck in his mouth again.

First, he squirmed his way through the opening in the dead security doors. He only glanced at the uniformed bodies slumped over the counters, an old cool freezing his heart in place. He'd have to live through horror once before. Though different, he found the tools to cope worked the same. He didn't think about what would happen when he closed his eyes.

 _Did he cause this in trying to escape?_

"Unnecessary," he told himself, pushing past the front doors, boots cracking across broken glass. Distant sirens and engines hummed through the city-lit night.

With a breath of diluted fumes, he picked up into a jog. Past the parking lot. Past the outside fence. Into the sagebrush and dirt. As he did so, his mind flowed past the ice of his heart, streaming with plans and information such as first, he needed a dark place to hunker down. Then to close his eyes and figure out what had happened to Joey and Mokuba.

As though brought on by the thought, darkness clouded his bright, moonlit vision, and images trickled through in pieces. Of teeth, of a bright, warm-eyed face turning pale and feral, teeth wide, brown eyes the murky color of mud and panic.

His foot caught. Dirt and bushes slammed into him, knocking the breath from him.

Like that, the images faded.

"What the…" wincing, he pulled himself out of the brush. Already he could feel the cuts and scrapes healing. He looked behind him, wondering how he had gotten so far from the jail in such a short time, or if he simply had been somewhere else during then.

 _Whatever._ Either way, this would have to do.

Tucking himself between some scruffy short trees, hugged about by brush, he folded his legs, closed his eyes, and mentally reached for the darkness as he had been taught.

It was easier, this time. As he thought towards Joey, he saw her, her gangly form impossibly curled into the footwell of a car. As though in a movie, and he the camera, he somehow got a view of her face behind her legs, gaunt, fanged jaws spread wide, and tears trickling straight from her bare, bulging eyes. Her mouth had gone purple, like a corpse's.

 _Dying…_

He jerked back to the darkness with a harsh gasp. The cold which had stopped him from registering the dead shuddered, flecks of acidic heat leaking through.

"No—no, Mokuba," he closed his eyes again, but when he saw the back of the car again with Joey's vibrating form crunched to the floor, he barely registered his brother in the seat next to her before he had to pull back again, a fierce terror tearing through his innards like a wild animal.

Scrambling for whatever remains of his composure he had left, Seto staggered to his feet and started his way towards the glowing sentinel of Domino City.


	41. In Love with Death

**Just remembered I promised to put this up this morning since I was afraid my last chapter was too short. ^.^ Sorry bout that. Here it is!**

40

Yugi thought when she met the end there would be more pain. Or at least, more fear. But the tingle that ran up to engulf her consciousness in black numbness came strong and quick, but gently, as though it were arms scooping her legs out from beneath her rather than her body collapsing and vanishing.

But the rush of regret she had expected came.

In the split second before the black swallowed her whole, she thought of her mother and grandfather. She thought of Joey and all her light class friendships, and a sharp pang of longing ran through her. She wanted to taste her mother's homemade waffles again. She wanted to see her grandfather laugh at some blunt, teenage truth she'd spouted. She wanted to see Joey rock back and forth as she told Yugi about her date with Duke while she insulted Tristan, who flirted with her like a fourth grader, aka, insults and teasing. She wanted to see how they all turned out, both her mom in her dreams, her grandfather when Yugi proved all his hopes and faith in her right and true, Joey when she finally graduated and proved the world wrong about her heritage as white trash.

And Atem. Him she hurt for most of all, because if she died in his arms…that strong, compassionate man, who she had sensed a very sensitive, very fragile soul, who had run with all his might to save the young mother who had overdosed and handled her children so gently. He'd have that look on his face, the one she'd seen in the dim dawn light, drawn and open with something more terrible than horror and more destructive than plain guilt. The scar on his chest, when he tried to tear out his own heart, would never heal. Nor could Yugi be there to catch his wild head when he crashed down to a hoped for death.

Thus, when she woke and saw no tubes, no oxygen mask or hospital white, just a plain, popcorn ceiling lit by a thin square of morning light that managed to slip past the closed curtain, she sighed and waited for a sign that she was no longer living. She had never stopped believing in an afterlife, after all, and had no conceptions of a grandiose temple where the souls of the departed lingered in as they came to terms with their end. A warm room in the morning worked just as well.

But then a hungry growl from her stomach brought her weary head about to what was not just any cozy morning, but the familiar humble studio apartment of an herbalist vampire.

Said vampire stood at her head next to the window, slumped against the wall, eyes closed, and mouth slack in steady, sleeping breathes. As it so often was, his chest was bare, but he wore sea foam scrub pants rather than his usual black. His skin was paler than ever. But what caught her off guard was the IV taped to the inside of his forearm and connected to, not the usual IV bag (one of which hung on the wall next to him by a thumbtack and half filled with scarlet blood), but to a tube as thick as her finger which ran down to the inside of her own arm, filled with a dark maroon.

A chill shot up her spine. Her fingers flew to her mouth, but her canines didn't seem any larger or sharper than normal. Nor did she particularly crave blood. Though, as her stomach gave another grumble, she did crave a rather large bacon ranch burger with layers of homemade potato chips. They had always been her grandfather's specialty, and it showed in his girth.

Gingerly, she untapped her IV and pulled it out, quickly pinching her arm closed as blood, equally dark, threatened to drip out. With her other arm she began the arduous process of clawing her way out of the man-eating black bean bag.

No sooner had she even begun to shift when Atem woke with a start.

"Yugi," he gasped, blinking hard before focusing in on her. Dark shadows framed his eyes and the red in the iris already glowed. As he found her, she noticed his lower jaw loosening, probably as his canines lengthened, as she had already noticed they tended to do when hungry.

Her mouth went dry and her throat clenched. Her hand caught on to a handful of beanbag and yanked her free, eyes never leaving the vampire.

"Yugi," he repeated. "You're…I'm awake, right? This isn't a dream?"

Yugi tried at a light smile and found it far too easy, despite her apprehension. "Are you always so blood thirsty in your dreams?"

He opened his mouth to respond, then ran his tongue down his teeth, as though having not noticed their change. He looked down at his arm, where the blood filled tube still hung.

"You're bleeding…" he said slowly. "I should…"

He looked up and his red eyes found hers. They shivered from one of her eyes to the other, then down her face and up again. The scarlet started to dim and he clenched his jaw.

Faster than she could see, Atem flung himself across the bean bag and engulfed her in his arms. They both loss balance and fell back into the squish of the bean bag with Yugi on top, her face mashed into his chest. Taking advantage of her shock, he buried his face in her hair and squeezed her all the tighter. She didn't notice he hadn't breathed until he suddenly sucked in a breath some seconds later just to let out a body shaking sob.

Despite the nearly rib crunching strength in which he held her, she managed to get her face around and a few shaking breaths in. As he continued to gasp and sob intermittingly, her apprehension vanished and a familiar, peaceful calm stole over her.

Only once she was sure the top of her head was coated with snot did he pull back his face and loosened his arms.

"I'm so sorry," he rasped. "I don't—I shouldn't be alive, I'm so sorry, it will never be enough—"

"From what I saw you didn't really have a choice in the matter."

"Fuck that," he squeezed her tight again, repeating that until she gently pushed to show she would like some space to breathe. Instead, he snapped back from her as though she had shocked him, or suddenly disgusted that he dared to touch her at all.

"Atem—"

"They'll be searching for you," he started to struggle to get out from beneath her. "If it wasn't your blood, I—I all but reassured their interest in you. I've ruined your life, and I can never atone for that, but I have some money put away. I can get you a place to live, somewhere far away, hide you, maybe even get you a new identity-"

"Atem…"

He both quieted and stilled, only having managed to get his shoulders and stomach free from her. Yugi tried not to notice how she now straddled his pelvis, and had even clenched her thighs in tight to keep him from dislodging her skull first onto the floor.

Heart aching, she reached out to brush her fingers down his face. Such a sharp, proud face, softened and bruised by exhaustion and blood loss.

"I forgive you, Atem. Even if had been your choice to bite me, I forgive you. It's okay. You're okay. And everything else is going to be okay too," she wiped away the streams of tears with the flat of her knuckles and her thumb. "Just breathe, dear. You are okay."

He stared at her as she continued to wipe away the tears leaking out from his eyes and did as she said: breathed. When she noticed him fighting not to ruin the moment by wiping the snot from his nose with his arm, she took off her shirt and handed it to him. At the stunned look, she shrugged. She wasn't even wearing a bra.

"Vampires don't have a sex drive, and I'm going to burn it first chance I get anyways."

He accepted it, blew his nose, and in the process sunk back into the sofa. When he opened his eyes, it was to stare at her once more. Some nameless emotion softened and burned them at the same time. An echoing sort of burning lit up in her chest.

"I love you."

Warmth crawled from the burn in her chest to her face. "Oh."

He shook his head hard. "No, scratch that. Yugi, I adore you. I…I…you make it hard to breathe. When I realized you were dying, I…" he gulped hard and squeezed his eyes closed. Then he released a pent up, gut-wrenching whine and contracted in on himself. When he next spoke her name, it was a high pitched whimper more fit for a child than a three hundred year old man.

Automatically, her hands went to his face again. "No, no, calm down. It's okay, look! I'm alive. I feel pretty good, actually. Not light headed at all. See?" she pressed the side of her wrist to his ear. "Warm, heartbeat and everything."

Just then, her stomach decided to remind the room rather loudly of its empty existence.

More heat pooled in her face. "Uh, b-besides that."

But Atem instantly went back to crawling out from underneath her and out of the bean bag. No sooner did he topple out of its squishy grasp then he was in the kitchen, shuffling through cupboards and fridge and pantry.

Yugi frowned. "Shouldn't you be more worried about yourself? Your eyes were glowing when you woke up, and your jaw got all loose like you'd grown…"

"You first," he said, voice thick, then he swore. "The only palpable food I could make is hot chocolate, and that's only because I borrowed that cocoa from Mr. Snyder. I'm sorry, I'm not use to having any human guests, and the last time I fed you here was the last of any stores I had."

She rolled her eyes. "It's your home, why should anyone expect you to have stuff you can't eat in here?"

"Because often times I mix in my remedies into a meal, because there are many medicines that do better when digested with food. They're more likely to not be diluted by the liver so much then." He came back around and opened the closet next to his door, where he took out a long, black trench coat. "I'll have to go get some. I'll be quick, I promise."

She jolted upright. "Wait, if you did what I think you did, won't they be looking for you too? Besides, your eyes—you'll stick out like a sore—"

He popped on a pair of dark sunglasses, smiling at her.

She wrinkled her nose. "Fine, just promise you'll get yourself something too. Didn't you say you could drink animal blood?"

"Yep. And there are way too many poor dog owners in this city that need to be relieved of their privilege." He snapped and zipped the coat closed and slipped on some loose, untied sneakers. He ruffled through his pockets, found what it was he was looking for, than turned to the door. "I know I have no right whatsoever to tell you what to do—"

"I'll stay here," she said.

His eyes found hers again, soft and burning. She found herself sinking back into the bean bag, the heat from his gaze making her feel strangely floppy all a sudden.

"Thank you," he almost whispered, then slipped out the door.

She waited till she could trust her legs again before carefully getting up to lock the deadbolt. The doorknob, after all, had been switched around, so the locking mechanism was on the outside and the keyhole was on the inside. She contemplated it for a bit, bemused by how long ago that event now seemed, then padded off to the bathroom for a hot shower, realizing she actually craved the lemon-sage scent of Atem's homemade shampoo. Perhaps she'd ask him to make her some when he came back.

Bubbles of the stuff were pouring down her head when her mind finally snapped back to the other reality, the one in which an extremely attractive vampire three times older than the oldest man on earth had confessed his love. Her knees went all wibbly wobbly and Yugi ended up flopping down to the floor of the porcelain tub.

"Oh," she breathed.

Because what else could she say to that?


	42. Withdrawal

41

Joey craved.

It wasn't the usual period cravings for fat and salt and chocolate. Nor was it like when her mouth watered when she caught a whiff of an outdoor barbecue. Rather, it was what Joey suspected pregnancy cravings were like, except worse. It took away her appetite for the blood Mokuba offered her and she often felt light headed, or her vision would suddenly blur over read and she'd wake up with Mokuba backed into a corner and looking at her strangely.

In the end, the reason they left the safe security of the secret hatch and set out to find Seto wasn't just because Mokuba had planned to do so eventually. But because Joey feared she was quickly going insane without his taste.

As she followed the younger Kaiba she rubbed her aching jaw. Occasional whiffs of Seto would blind her with red and she'd wake up with sheets torn between her teeth and fingers or curled up against a particular piece of furniture like a forlorn dog with Mokuba tugging on her sleeve. It was ages by the time they actually left the mansion, disguised by coats and hats, and made it to the nondescript Honda the Kaiba's one trusted man, Roland, stood by. Joey nearly fainted with relief on smelling nothing but car cleaner and the certain something which was Roland.

"We keep this on hand in case we have to make under cover getaway," said Mokuba.

"Sometimes I wonder if you guys are just super spies under the guise of being rich billionaires," Joey said, unconsciously pulling up her shaking legs onto the seat. Sweat had pooled under her arms and around her neck. She felt wired. Crazy. Crazy for that taste. For that smell.

"It's disgusting what lows people will go to for money," said Mokuba, snapping the door closed behind him. "It didn't take too many scares for my brother and I to get paranoid."

Joey's attention kept wavering in and out with her vision. Her body wouldn't stop trembling and shaking. She tried watching Mokuba, wondering how sad that a twelve year old sounded so grown up, then found herself crunched into the footwell, her jaws cramped back from long teeth and her knees covered in sweat—no, drool.

"Stop," she croaked, crunching further. "Please, God, make it stop. It hurts. I can't…Seto. Yugi. Someone."

It took her a moment of rocking and groaning to realize Mokuba's warm hand was gently stroking her hair.

"What's the hold up?" Mokuba said.

Joey couldn't have answered even if she had wanted to, as her salivating jaws suddenly Charlie horsed as wide as they could go.

But she hadn't needed to. Roland responded.

"I'm not sure, Mr. Kaiba. There are people running everywhere. I think a few have abandoned their cars in the road…we should return to the mansion. Something has gone wrong."

"Joey, can you still here me?"

Yes. She did. But her jaw wouldn't close, and drool soaked her legs. It hurt. It hurt so bad. All she could think about was him.

A memory of chocolate milkshakes drifted through her mind. Of horror games in a small, messy room with her best friend. It drew a high, despairing whine from her gut to the top of her head. If only her jaw would break off. If only she could be allowed to bleed to death. If only…

"I'm sorry, sir, the roads are blocked."

Joey blinked hard, feeling as though a fair bit of time had passed without her notice. Her jaw had closed without her notice, but the taste of her own blood and the sharp pain of her fangs filled her mouth. Mokuba's hand hadn't left her hair.

"Then take us to south district, fourty-west—"

Roland suddenly squawked, in a manly, I'm a body-guard sort of way.

"Sir, that woman, she was just—"

"Quick! Turn around!"

"But sir, we really should be returning to the mansion, if your brother—"

"We're vampires, Roland. We'll be fine. And our scent should keep you safe too, if that's what you're worried about. They probably want easy prey."

"I wasn't worried about that. I can take care of myself, sir."

"Then turn around already!"

Joey could taste blood on her breath now too. Her lungs became sticky. Yet she couldn't cough, even as she blinked away red and came to wheezing. Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth.

 _Just let it end. Let me die already._

Dark red. Snarling. An overwhelming need to run, to fly, to take to the sky and find him, bury herself in him, dig her fangs—

A slap of white cold and Joey came back, blinking up at a familiar face donned in sunglasses and a grim, sharp frown. But everything he did seemed to be sharp. Yugi had said something similar.

"Joey," he said, quietly. "What are you doing out here?"

She struggled to work her tongue around the fangs crowding her mouth. "Kaiba."

It was too bright. So bright. But everything hurt, so she hardly felt her eyes anymore. She just saw, and went blind, then saw some more.

"Figures," he said, not impatiently, but as though in pain. The weight holding her down lifted and hard, strong hands lifted her to her feet.

"I know you don't think you can stomach the taste," he said, very gently, "but you should take some of my blood. Not here, but in the alley. I'm afraid you won't last much longer if you don't."

At the thought, her jaw cramped and she literally gagged. No blood. Just Seto. Just that choking need for the nameless taste, that perfect smell—the air, the not-oxygen. She was drowning.

She didn't realize she had started to choke until Atem caught her and started pulling her away from the terrible light. A cool darkness blanketed her, and the suffocation stopped, if for only a moment.

Then something soft and wet was being shoved into her mouth. She struggled to spit it out, but her own long fangs worked against her, catching onto bone and forcing herself to drag deep of the coolness rushing down her throat.

The consciousness that came to her this time came softly, like waking up on a clear morning. Unfortunately, it was the clear morning of a school day, not a weekend, as every bit of her felt bruised, shaken, and as heavy as she could have after a mile long dash.

But she felt human again, if only just.

Atem, nursing an arm slowly healing before her eyes, grimaced.

"I'm sorry, Josephine. I don't know if I just did something kind or cruel."

Joey didn't care. She was too tired to. Too hungry.

"Where's Mokuba?" she asked.

Atem raised an eyebrow. "He was with you?"

Joey shrugged and melted a bit more on the brick wall she was leaning against.

After a moment of consideration, Atem seemed to make a decision and left her, but didn't go far. He had brought her down to the lower level of an unlit parking garage, and when he returned down the stairs he had grocery bags hanging from his hands.

"Would you like to see Yugi?" he asked, once more with a gentleness she wasn't use to.

The possibility of seeing her closest friend doubled Joey over with the force of a sudden, gasping sob.

"Yugi?" she managed to gasp.

He just gave her a sad little smile and gestured to her to follow him.

Memories of Yugi gave Joey the strength to climb the stairs. It gave her the strength to struggle through the sunlight, even though she eventually had to give up and let Atem lead her blind. It pushed her up the last stairs, where she trembled on what she presumed was his doorstep with knocking knees.

Then the scent Joey knew best rolled over her. The scent of home, of coconut shampoo, of well-worn comforters, and old playstation horror games.

"Joey!"

That voice!

With a cry, Joey moved past Atem and opened her eyes, despite the light, desperate for the source of the sound—just to find Yugi had already crossed the space between them for her and thrown her arms around Joey's waist. The sudden relief caused Joey's legs to buckle and she had no choice but to fall upon Yugi's neck.

"Oof—Joey! What's wrong? Atem! Help!"

The strong hands plucked at her, but Joey had lost any semblance of strength. The only reason a tendril of her consciousness remained was because it feared too strongly to leave Yugi's presence. This had to be the dream at the end of the nightmare. Perhaps now it would finally end.

"Oh god, what happened to you? Atem, she's—she's—help her!"

"I cannot." And he sounded in pain.

"Do you only do human health? Can't vampires take medicine?"

"It's not that, Yugi, it's…well, love…some vampires weren't meant to be. There are lot of people whose bodies only give in to the virus once they're weakened, but their bodies give out before it can be completed. In attempting to keep her alive, though, I fear Seto Kaiba may have done your friend more harm than good."

"How? What did he do?"

"He fed her his blood. Her body rejected human blood, as these stillborn vampires are oft to do, so he allowed her his."

"Why would vampire blood make any difference? Can't we just give her more?"

"The only reason she made it here was because I forced her to take mine. But, Yugi, I think…my theory is, and what I've observed…her body wasn't able to develop the most important thing that the virus thrives on, and that's to create the blood cells necessary to generate the nutrient dense, thick, unclotting vampiric blood so that it can feed off the excess nutrients. That's why they die. But by giving Joey that blood, it allowed the virus and her body to live on without the means to maintain itself. Not only that, but it doesn't have the ability to utilize any blood, no matter the type. Josephine's body is addicted to Seto Kaiba's blood type. Another's blood can only do so much."

"Then where's Kaiba? Maybe if we find him—"

"Kaiba could be anywhere."

"But there was a jailbreak on the news, I saw it—"

"Like I said, Yugi. Anywhere…I'm sorry."

The pain was dissipating. But she didn't want to leave. She had finally made it back home, to Yugi. She didn't want to leave to the scary darkness again. She wasn't good with that stuff, after all. Yugi was. Yugi could keep her cool and shoot the zombies, solve the puzzles. Joey just liked to watch. Because when she stuck it out, Yugi would take her to places she couldn't alone, like the end of the games. Like a place to sleep where someone remembered that she liked cookie dough and went out at ten at night to get milkshakes with her. Like the future.

"What about my blood?"

"I'm sorry, no. It wouldn't help. If anything it might just make her sick. You're still human, after all."

"…Joey…"

No, don't cry. Who was making Yugi cry? Tell her who to beat up. There was little more as satisfying to Joey as punching in the face of a lowlife who thought they could tease her best friend.

"Joey."

Her world ate the sound and swallowed her name. Neither dark or bright took her down, down, till whatever made her drifted, like a sleep without dreams. But though she did not recognize herself, her awareness of another stayed with her, like a burned afterimage at the back of the eyes. He had a cool presence, but an effect on her like fire. She drew to it, or rather drifted, with all the simple emotion of a fleck of iron to a magnet.

Yet, as whatever was her brushed against the icy fire, a ripple of humanity spread through her, aching and strained, and with it, regret.

 _I didn't know you,_ wisped the words through her. _I wanted to._

The ripples drew her past the icy fire, back towards the nothing, where she was nothing. Blessedly nothing—

Cold fire, like claws, snapped about her presence. She shuddered at how ethereal it made her. This was the sun, and she was but a whisp of gas about to dissipate into the universe.

 _But I know you,_ he seemed to say.

A burst of light, a flood of colors and sensations, and Joey's head fell back for a gasp of air.

"Pull her back! Quick!"

A hand, bigger and not nearly as warm as Atem's, but familiar. It pulled her head back to press her mouth against warmth—just as it had in the beginning. Not-oxygen poured across her tongue. She hadn't the strength to cling to him like her body demanded, but she drank so hungrily she nearly choked, though she faintly knew she hadn't the ability to choke on this.

Feeling was returning to her body in cold waves. The first thing she registered was the arms about her and the body they pressed her to.

"Good puppy," rumbled a voice from within it.

"Yugi, I need you to come with me. We have to find something for him to drink."

"Preferably not female," came the rumbling voice. "Or under the age of fifteen. I hate men over the age of forty, though. I'd be okay with one of those."

"This isn't the time for your sarcasm, Kaiba."

"That wasn't sarcasm. Just woke up this morning with a dead girl in my mouth. Think I'm past feeling, at this point."

There was a tense sort of silence.

"Yugi, hijab—I mean, scarf, here."

"Oh! Yeah. My hair is kinda weird."

"Just go."

A thump of footsteps. A hiss and snap of a door opening and closing.

In the quiet, a solid heartbeat reached through Joey's palms. One of the cold hands reached up through her hair, caressing her scalp, and gently picking apart snarls. After a time, a soft mouth brushed against her brow, where it remained, breathing slowly into the same strands of blond he combed.

"That's a girl. That's a girl. Everything's going to be alright."

And yet, Joey somehow knew he wasn't saying it for her.


	43. Meat

42

"No matter what, stay next to me."

The change in the city's atmosphere was apparent the moment he stepped out of the door. The streets were empty of pedestrians and cars, but the sharp tang of fumes of bumper to bumper traffic burnt his nose. Tinged on the edge, like a bitter-sweet aftertaste, was the tang of human terror.

Even so, when Yugi pressed closer to him and wrapped her hand in his, a thrill of delight threatened to undo him. She was here. She was okay. And her little hand was warm.

It being day made things difficult, especially with Yugi in tow, but Atem wasn't about to leave her behind with a thirsty vampire, nor was he too keen on getting blood on his carpet. Rugs were expensive, and vampiric blood was especially difficult to clean out. Not to mention he wasn't too fond of tearing out someone's heart in front of Yugi, especially someone she knew.

"Vampires won't come out in the day," she said. "So I'm probably okay as long as I don't go anywhere dark."

"Don't be so sure, little one. Our instincts will brave anything for blood. I once saw a vampire leap through a burning building to get to blood." His own disgust rang in his ears.

"That…" her nose wrinkled, and Atem felt a hard pang at the sight. _So cute._

"It's not natural because our bodies are but hosts to the real monster. It uses us to get what it wants."

"But if your body dies, doesn't it?"

Atem shrugged. "I've never had the tools to see for myself. Most of my theories are just that. Theories."

She gave him a little smile and squeezed his hands. "They sound pretty good so far. You're really smart, you know that?"

"Well, I am almost three hundred years old."

"Time may give you knowledge, but it doesn't give you brains. You know that." She looked about the empty street and the old factories/store fronts turned apartments. "So, where are we going to find him blood? Haven't you cleared out the area of dogs yet?"

"I haven't killed all the dogs, I do have some heart for pet-owner relationships." He pinched his chin in thought. He'd also purposely avoided killing all the animals in his area so as to not raise suspicion. It really made him think he should go back to living in the countryside, even if it was easier for people to notice something off. More bigger game that way.

"If you need to fly somewhere, I can find a nice sunny spot to wait," she said.

"I already said the sun doesn't ensure your safety."

"But what's the likelyhood of their being that desperate enough of a vamp around here? Wouldn't it naturally go where there's more people?"

Atem stopped, hesitating. "It doesn't work like that…"

She turned curious, big eyes on him. "What do you mean? More people, more blood, right?"

Atem shifted from foot to foot, more aware of the feel of her little hand in his than ever. If he told her…but if she ran, it would be for the best.

"Our instincts don't take us to the crowds," he said slowly. "Crowds are dangerous. They take us to the weak. More often than not, we go to those who are closest to us, as trust makes them the weakest of all. It's why…"

She didn't flinch. She just stood there, listening with the same curious, accepting expression that she had worn that warmer day when she ran deliveries with him.

The amount of warm affection that welled up then threatened to choke off his breath. He felt stuffed, cramped with it, as though it were building up and there was no outlet.

 _Gods above, I love her._

"Why?" she pressed, cocking her head to the side.

He dropped his gaze to his feet, hot.

"It's why I haven't had any close relations for…most of my life. And why…" He squeezed her hand. "Yugi, I don't know if I'll be able to leave you of my own accord, so, if you can hate me, push me away—"

To his surprised, she blew a raspberry and smacked a hand to the side of his face, grinning.

"Stop being so serious. You can't help it that you're human. Or have human needs, I guess."

He stared at her, at the way her petite mouth poked out with that quirky little smile, at the vibrancy of the amethyst of her eyes in the daytime sun, in the ease which she held his face, fully knowing of the death he had wrecked on her more than once.

Bursting at the seems, he jerked forward and pressed his mouth to hers.

Though he hadn't kissed or thought of kissing anyone for over two hundred years, a faint memory from the beginning flickered up to remind him of what was missing. Though her soft lips were moist against his, and she tasted faintly the same way she smelled, there was no heated stirring from within him. There was no addictive tingle of pleasure. There was no satisfaction, nor any release of the heated adoration within him. There was also a startling lack of the certain something that had told him how to kiss when he had touched his fiancé that fateful day so long ago.

Thus, dismayed, disappointed, embarrassed, he jerked back with an arm over his mouth and eyes averted.

"I wasn't trying to take advantage of you," he said quickly to her as well as himself. "I just—I just loved you so much then, I was going to burst, I wanted to…I wanted to…"

Her small hand took up his again and squeezed it.

"It's okay, Atem."

He shook his head hard, eyes burning. "I'm sorry."

"You really should stop apologizing for things. I've already forgiven you. But we're supposed to be hunting right now, not…you know."

He nodded, took his arm down and pushed on ahead, forcing himself to sniff the air again for a lead. But it was a bit difficult as the tears built in his eyes.

There had been no connection. It had been like kissing meat. And a kiss with something as precious as her…for it to feel like that…

"How about I leave you on a roof?" he asked. "I can't fly, but I can move quicker without you. I won't be far, but if you keep low you shouldn't draw attention."

"Atem? What's wrong?"

He inwardly cursed. "I'm fine. Here, this building is one of the tallest in the neighborhood." And without warning, he pushed out his wings, grabbed her, and kicked off into the air in the same movement. Yugi gave a surprised squeak and clung to him, only to find nothing slippery smooth skin rather than a shirt. But she needn't of worried. Atem would never let her fall.

"Stay low," he told her again the moment her feet touched the roof.

"Atem—"

"I'm fine," he repeated, even as his insides shook. "I'll be right back. I'll fly low and quick."

"But what if someone sees—"

But he was already up, wings digging at the sky to push him forward and out. He already had the ripe scent of a particularly angry Doberman a few streets over.

 **Author's Note: I guess when I'm moody I post up more chapters. :P EMO CHAPTERS.**


	44. When Mommy Goes Vamp

43

Seto never wanted to drink a dog's blood again.

For one, the fur was a gagging hazard. For seconds, it tasted a lot how wet dogs smelled. For thirds, the fur made the skin tough, so it was almost worse than biting into a blood bag, and also made it so he had to actually suck at the flesh like a drained Otter Pop rather than just intermittent gentle sucks to keep the blood flowing.

"You live off of this?" he asked the watching, grinning vampire after gagging for the third time.

"Well, I do think to shave it first," Atem said.

"I was desperate."

"Sure you were."

And he had been. Having to sustain Joey as well as himself, his blood thirst had been particularly nasty. In fact, he unsettled Joey off his lap when Atem opened the door and Yugi's human scent wafted through. He'd had his knees readying for a leap at her when Atem chucked 95 pounds of dog carcass at his face. At least the old man seemed impressed that he had managed to remain conscious.

"Really," Atem said as Seto went back to the dog with as much dignity as he could muster. "The fact that you had any conscious awareness at all when you were still growing back your heart is phenomenal. We're making quite the collection of rare specimens here."

Seto figured it just meant he had superior mental will and capabilities, but getting this horrid meal over and done with as soon as possible took priority to showing up the arrogant geezer.

When Joey let out a small whimper and nuzzled underneath his arm in attempts to get to his lap, she found a wad of dog in her way. Seto hoped that would deter her from his blood, but then he felt her pawing up his back and the ting of pain in the side of his neck near the back.

Meanwhile, petite Yugi had preoccupied herself with the contents of the grocery bags on the counter. After asking where his pans were, Atem went into the kitchen as well and had gotten underway cooking something that might have smelled tantalizing once upon a time when Seto still ate food. It did help to cover the dog scent a bit, as whatever Atem cooked had been heavily laden with herbs.

"This should help with your blood pressure and immune system," he said as he poured the food onto a plate. "Heaven knows what a kick they've gotten of late. I'm surprised you're not sick yet."

"Thank you!" she chirped, still avoiding the other type of meal going on in the living room.

She sat down at the table, but Atem stopped her.

"Could you go sit next to the wall against the bean bag? Or in it, whichever is comfortable. I'd like to give you an IV of vitamins and saline solution, just to make sure. You're still looking pale."

The little smile the girl gave Atem perked Seto's suspicion.

"Do you enjoy having me as your patient?"

The vampire flushed, but did not look embarrassed or pleased.

"I'd rather you not need anything at all," he said flatly. "But is the IV okay with you?"

"Sounds good to me. You're the doctor. And besides, with everything that's going on outside right now…"

She left that sentence hanging and Atem busied himself with pulling out plastic IV bags full of clear solution and whatever stuff went with an IV. Yugi watched and ate what Seto realized was a full steak meal with a side of some kind of bean and fried rice. There was so much green stuff cooked over the two that he had mistaken it for some sort of cooked spinach salad for a minute.

A sharp burst of pain on the back of his neck returned his attention to Joey, who had started worrying at his neck for more. Seto slapped her sharply across the head.

"Bad dog," he snapped.

"Ow! What the…aw hell, not this again." She shoved at him in her earnestness to get away, knocking his teeth against the dog's shoulder bone. It hurt.

"And that's the thanks I get for saving your life yet again. I take that back, you're worse than a dog."

"No kidding, what kind of dog wakes up knowing on someone's neck? I can't believe I'm starting to miss my alarm clock." There was a pause. "YUGI!"

"Hey Jo'," said the girl at the table around a mouthful of steak.

There was a clatter of feet and chair legs and Joey threw her arms around Yugi, nearly unsetting her plate of food to the floor in the process. Atem gave the girl a disgruntled glare as her weight slammed the door to the pantry into his shoulder. But he seemed to get over it and simply walked around the now blubbering Joey with IV bag and tube in hand.

Seto dropped his meal for the uptenth time as Atem walked past, touching his shin to get his attention.

"If she can only have me, I'm not going to be able to keep up with her," he told him in a nigh whisper.

Atem's expression sobered and he gave Seto a small nod before going back to the wall where a half-filled bag of blood had been, and which Seto had emptied the first chance he got. He peeled off the bag, tacked on the other, and then hung the line from it onto another tack he had pushed into a wall. The most ghetto IV line Seto had ever seen, for sure.

"I don't think it will comfort you any, but her body will probably give out before yours." Atem turned and crouched down where Seto sat leaning against a wall, better to speak to him without catching the attention of the girls. "Your body may actually benefit from this. At least your time between feedings will be stretched."

"Hold on, what do you mean her body will give out? If she gets her needs met, isn't that enough?"

He hated the sappy, pitying look the shorter man gave him just then. He hated pity. The only thing stopping him from slapping the 100 pounds of dog back at him was the need for answers.

Carefully, quietly, Atem told him of those like Joey, who's bodies didn't give in to the virus until they were nearly dead—and even then, most likely too weak to support it. Seto kept his eyes to the two girls happily chatting as the one finished her meal as he listened.

"…over time, the virus will begin to demand more of her body as it changes it more. Without that vital part of her to make new blood, she won't be able to keep up. Even if you somehow made stores of the blood she needed, she'd eventually either not be able to drink quickly enough or she'll kill you, in which she will soon follow after. Especially since her talent is so physically taxing on her…"

"And how do you know all this?" Seto wasn't surprised at how harsh his voice sounded.

"I've been alive for a very long time, and…and I've also studied these types of vampires in hope to find a cure, back in Italy some eighty or so years ago."

The look that came to Atem's eyes on mentioning that unnerved Seto. They became flater, darker, and any remains of pity had melted from his expression.

"I'd rather not go back to that particular memory," he said, ever more quietly.

"Hmm," said Seto, tapping his fingers along the side of the bloodless Doberman.

He didn't particularly care about what Atem did or experienced during said experiment to give him such a look. He was quite interested in seeing any records or documents concerning it.

He was just opening his mouth to ask Atem if he had anything left over from that when a heavy pounding started up on the door. The girls went quiet and Atem stood up too quickly for even Seto's eyes to catch. The older vampire raised a hand to signify their silence and carefully crept up to the door's peek hole. Seto caught the side of a cheek cutting frown.

"Wait here," he told the room, then carefully opened the door, keeping his body between the opening and the rest of his apartment. Around the thin vampire Seto caught sight of long, dark hair and trembling, feminine legs.

"Atem—" she stopped with a sharp intake of breath. "You…you're…"

"Where's the kids?" he asked.

"But, you…" she took a deeper drag of air. "Inside…you have…"

"Darlene, please tell me your kids aren't home with you."

But the girl's hand suddenly shot past Atem's side, clawing at the air. Her knee jutted through with a harsh growl.

In a sudden heave of movement and strength, Atem took hold of the woman and vanished with her outside, closing the door behind him.

"Tell me that wasn't…" Yugi dropped from the table and ran for the door. Seto managed to get an arm out to stop her from opening it.

"That was a vampire, a hungry one," he said, having caught the ripe, rotten fruit scent. Thank god Atem hardly had a smell at all to him so Seto could catch the smell of another. Lemon bodywash for the world.

But he didn't expect the horrified panic that spilt across the girl's face. After all, she had just been chummy with a room full of vampires.

"Kimmy! The baby!" she cried, and made a go at the door again.

Joey leapt over. "Whoa! Get your hand off that doorknob!"

She needn't have bothered. Seto had already pushed her away.

"She has kids! If she got turned it has to have happened in just the past few days! Where are her kids? What happened to her kids!"

The memory of Mokuba limp in his arms with blood staining his shirt moved Seto the rest of the way to his feet. Pushing the girls back, he opened the girl and stepped outside into blinding, late afternoon sun. Squinting through the pain, he looked about for Atem or the girl but saw nothing. He could smell her, though, like a bad smell on a hot summer's day.

Hand over his eyes, he gingerly made his way down the metal stairs to the second floor, where three doors, one of which was open, were. He made his way to the open door and nearly walked into Atem on his way out.

"They're not here," he said, hand over his eyes as well. "Damn, that doesn't tell me anything."

Seto caught a flash of red. Though because of the light, he couldn't see.

"The girl?"

Atem closed the door behind him with a sharp snap. The red came from his stained fingers, which looked as though he dipped his fingers in maroon dye and lazily tried to rinse them off. "Taken care of. But I don't have the time to burn her. We need to get Yugi out of this town before they find her."

"Excuse me, we? And can we stop talking in this damn sunlight? What would want the shrimp anyways?"

To his credit, Atem didn't answer until they were back in the apartment, and that was to calm the frantic panic of the lone human inside.

"Kimmy and the baby aren't there," he told her, brushing the back of his hand down her arm in a far too familiar gesture. "Don't worry about it, I took care of it."

"Took care of it?" she squeaked, not looking comforted in the least.

Atem groaned. "Look, Yugi—"

But Joey broke across her. "This place is a plague zone, we have to get Yugi out of here."

Now it was Seto's turn to groan, though he did so as quietly as he could. He had not forgotten any of Miss Wheeler's fierce stubbornness or need to protect her friend.

"My thoughts exactly," said Atem, jumping to the change in topic. "The scientists back at the jail also know her blood isn't normal, so they'll be after her for that as well. But the city has been quarantined, not to mention any exit is jam packed with people."

Joey scowled. "They can't keep the whole city locked up in here. This isn't Gotham, we aren't surrounded by water or anything."

"Which makes what they will be using all the more dangerous." Seto rubbed his fingernails across his eyebrows. "If you were hoping for a helicopter out, old man, they'll shoot us down before you blink. Your best bet is just to fly her out with your weird shadow crap once night comes."

"If we can hold out till then," Atem sighed, then tugged on Yugi's arm. "Come on. Once I wash my hands, it's vitamins."

"But you're making it sound like we should leave, like, now." Though she followed him towards the wall and sit her down on the bean bag.

"They may think you have the cure, and a cure may be the only thing that will save this city from being utterly destroyed. It's only a matter of minutes until they find you, but I can't fly you out during the day. My shadow cover won't work."

"Then why not walk out?"

"Infared scanners, machine guns, snipers," said Seto lazily.

Joey winced. "You don't seriously think the army's out there shooting down innocent people, do you?"

"If they're a danger to the rest of the country, yes. Now that they know just how dangerous and contagious this vampirism is, I'd be very surprised if it weren't the case."

"Still, I feel really weird doing all this speculating without seeing anything for myself," Joey said.

"And if anything should happen, I want you ready for it," said Atem to Yugi as he made sure the IV bag was tacked to the wall. "That means peak health. Or as close as I can get you to it. And until we can figure something out, might as well."

"I can't believe Kimmy's mom…" said Yugi.

"Can't be helped, little one. If her drug abuse was any indicator, she probably got around to much and made herself vulnerable. Don't think about it."

"You think Mokuba's gonna be okay in all this?" Joey asked.

Seto frowned, remembering seeing Mokuba last with Joey in the car with Roland. He closed his eyes to see if he could reach that certain meditative state which brought him visions, but couldn't. Too bright.

"Give me a second." He crossed the room to Atem's bathroom, which, of course, smelled uncomfortably scentless. There, he closed the door, shoved a towel at the bottom to block the light, and closed his eyes again.

This time, the colors readily pooled behind his view.

What he saw, though, wasn't his brother.


	45. Clean the Decay

44

Without thinking anything about it, Yugi left the bean bag and followed Atem to the bathroom and leaned against the doorway as she watched him clean his hands with anti-bacterial dishsoap and sand from a little bowl he'd kept by the sink. He kept glancing back at her and seemed to think about hiding what he was doing for a minute, than thought otherwise. Vampiric blood, even diluted by water, was still an unnatural dark maroon.

After the third scrub, Yugi began to worry about his hands. He was anything but gentle and the water had been running clear for a while. Unsure of what to say to stop him, she just reached out and turned off the faucet.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

As she had thought, his knuckles and fingertips had been scraped raw. But even as he shook the water off into the sink, the skin began to lighten and heal.

He leaned against his arms, bowing his head. Dark hair curled about his limp fingers. A minute passed without a word and she couldn't make out his expression past the short sweep of wild dark hair.

Biting her lip, Yugi reached out again, this time to touch him, but hesitated. If she touched him, would he infer more? Did she mean more? And would it really help him?

In the end, she let her hand fall to the side.

"I know you have to get me out of the city," she said, measuring the words on her tongue like salt. "But even if you did, what about you? And Joey and the Kaibas?"

He straightened and dried his hands off. "What about us?"

"Well, it…it just can't be right. You said this was just a disease. But you're still alive. You're living."

"Don't be mistaken, Yugi," he snapped the towel back onto the towel rack. "This is not living."

She wrinkled her nose, frustrated with his depressive comment, more because she couldn't do anything about it. "You look pretty alive to me. Maybe it just needs a change of attitude."

"Then I'll be more logical." He turned to face her fully, leaning back against the sink. The too-white light gave his skin a strange, murky pallor, bringing out the too dark veins. For some reason, she didn't recognize the body she had seen in that room back at the Kaiba mansion. The wide, pit like scar over his heart stood out as a bright pink against the gray. He looked…sickly.

"Every living thing on this planet has a purpose, namely to survive long enough to reproduce and pave the way for the next generation. One would argue that humanity needs more than that, but if left alone on a deserted island with all the food and water and protection from the elements that he would ever need, he would still die. Leave a woman there with him, though," at this he reached out and very gently ran a finger along a forelock of her hair. "And not only will he live, but an entire civilization will grow in his place. Is this not true?"

"Yes." She wasn't sure where he was going with this.

"Then take vampires," he pulled back his hand, almost imperceptible creases appearing about his eyes. "Give us a woman on that island and not only will she die, but we will as well. We cannot reproduce. We only survive off of the destruction of our own kind, as at heart, we are human. Leave us on an island with blood, we die. Give us others, we die. Turn every human on this planet into vampires…" his eyes narrowed. "We die. We are not alive anymore, Yugi. That's why popular mythology calls us the undead."

Yugi averted her eyes to her feet, the back of her neck hot, fists clenched. She didn't know why that little lesson of his aggravated her so much. Nothing he had said was wrong. All of it was true. And yet it didn't—couldn't—add up. Why would something like this exist?

She felt another butterfly like touch across her hair.

"You need to not concern yourself—"

"What's so special about my blood?"

That gave him pause. "Pardon?"

"You said they were after me because they now knew I was different. Why would they be after me?"

Atem opened his mouth to answer, then suddenly slapped a hand to it. Before Yugi could react, he ducked toward the open toilet and violently vomited. Squawking in surprise, she stumbled out of the bathroom.

"Seto!" she cried, unable to tear her eyes away from the red splashing up onto the vampire's face. "Seto, he's sick! Something's wrong!"

But it wasn't Seto who came running to her side, but Joey.

"Don't just watch, give the man some space, Yug."

Yugi almost didn't hear Joey over the loud retching as more blood poured from Atem's mouth. Clumped, dodgy blood. His skin seemed to be turning even grayer before her eyes, the black veins poking out.

"Seto!"

The tall man stumbled across the apartment, hand to his eyes just as Joey managed to pull Yugi away.

"You dying, old man?" he grumbled into the bathroom.

In answer, Atem coughed, groaned, then retched again. Seto vanished into the bathroom. Yugi heard him say something about serving Atem right for using so many lemons before Joey pulled her down into the beanbag with her, wrapping her arms about Yugi from behind.

"Calm down, Yug."

Calm down? Why was she the only one reacting like this? Why was she being the one told to calm down?

"It's my blood, it's got to be," she said. "He got sick like this before after drinking it. What if it's killing him? Am I killing him?"

"Even if that were the case," said Joey lowly. "I think he'd be grateful to you nonetheless."

The panic, mixed with her lingering frustration, rose into a closed mouth scream.

"God, this isn't right!"

"Yugi, calm down."

"Shut up! This isn't right! None of this is!" she squirmed hard, even kicked, but Joey just tightened her grip.

"Course it ain't right, but that's life for you. Deal with it!"

"No!" she shrieked. "What's different about me? Why's my blood so weird? Why is it doing this? Why—" she stopped, remembering how she had woken up with Atem's blood flowing into her veins, and how great she had felt. She hadn't turned into a vampire. Nor had she died. He'd saved her life where it would have killed others.

They had asked her about the father she never knew.

"Let me go, Joey. I need to ask them something."

"Promise me you aren't going to go ballistic and start screaming or something."

Yugi tapped Joey's arm and nodded. So, reluctantly, her friend released her.

Atem's ragged, gasping breaths were magnified by the tiles of his small bathroom. Seto knelt next to him, a hand on his back, but otherwise saying nothing. Blood had splattered over the toilet seat, and the older vampire had slumped sideways onto the side of the tub.

"Why would they want my blood?" she asked. "Just answer me that, please. Maybe it will give us some clue as to what it's doing to Atem right now."

Seto frowned, an eyebrow cocked in an obvious 'how should I know?'

But Atem answered, breathless and weak.

"Bakura called you a half-breed. Said…said one of your parents were…so your blood is especially potent and would seem to give the drinker strength, but...but would over time give said drinker a tolerance for your blood." He pushed off the tub, his blood stained lips stark against his gray-white skin, still panting for breath. "Then when you…you were about to die…I gave you mine on the off chance it might be true…"

"But you said they can't reproduce."

"Funny story about that," Seto backed away from the older vampire, as though suddenly disgusted by their proximity, draping a hand across a knee. "I found porn magazines in Mokuba's room the other day. New issues. Now what would a twelve year old vampire have to do with that?"

Atem let out a gasp of a laugh. Then melted further, coughing. A thin stream of blood ran down the white side of the tub.

"But Mokuba can't just be lucky, can he?" asked Seto, ignoring Atem.

A part of Yugi shrunk back in embarrassment at the idea of talking porn magazines with two men, but the other part of her, the one zooming a million miles an hour on adrenaline and panic, pulled up memories she had never thought as anything more than her mom being weird.

"My mom likes younger men." Teenagers, really. But since she'd never gone out of her way to try and date the creepily young and more than likely illegal, it had never bothered Yugi. The only reason Yugi knew was from movies they had watched or comments her mom had made back in the day when she still dropped Yugi off at school.

"So, maybe if they're turned young enough they still have it for a little while," said Seto with a shrug. "Doesn't really matter." With a groan he braced himself on his knees and stood. "My brother's gone haywire in the streets. I've got to go save him, so if you want your girl out, old man, I suggest you don't die just yet."

A veiny, weakened hand snapped out to catch Seto's pant leg. "There's…no point…"

"Don't even start." Seto kicked off the offending hand. "I don't care how damned you think we are, but my brother and I still have a lot of life to live—and that includes finding a cure." He nudged past Yugi and out into the living room. "Come on, Mutt."

"Excuse me? What makes you think you can—"

"Rewind an hour ago when you nearly died without me and try asking me that again. Door's that way."

"I ain't leaving her!"

"And I'm not sucking on another dead dog for you, so mush, or I'll make you. And don't think your strength gives you an edge against me."

"You're bluffing."

"Try me."

Yugi dropped to Atem's side. With a hand on his panting ribs, she reached out and flushed the toilet, doing her best to imagine the swirling dark pool as pomegranate juice or the like. He felt hot to the touch. Burning hot.

"Atem, are you going to be okay?"

"Dandy," he breathed. "Can't…can't remember…when I last felt like this…it's nice."

She could feel a sort of wry distress at that. Was this man a masochist? Then again, what did she really know about him?

A brief, short fight commenced in the living room that ended with a rather loud, guttural squawk from Joey, but Yugi found herself not too worried. She hadn't been deaf or blind to what she'd seen from Kaiba as he held her best friend, after all.

"Told you so, puppy." A pause. "Hey…Yugi. Best you be leaving too."

"I'll be okay."

"Sure."

Then the unmistakable sound of the door opening and closing.

Atem's ragged breathing filled the quiet.

"You should listen to him," he finally managed to gasp. "I'm…I'm in no fit state…I'm just as bad—"

"If you need my blood, you can take it."

Her lack of hesitation surprised even her, but no sooner had she said it than she knew it was true. Looking at the panting, gray, sickly man only held up by the side of his bathtub, she couldn't deny the painful swelling of her heart.

"If my blood will give you that chance—"

"Shut up."

She flinched. His lack of breath only served to enhance the gravely tone of his sudden fury.

Atem pulled his arm up, gripped the edge of the tub, and pushed his face up to settle the full force of his sharp, shark-like gaze upon her.

"Next to the sink is a hook with some keys. They go to a green Chevy truck behind this building. Go."

A shiver ran through her as she took in the feral features, the red lips, the blood flecked across his face and streaming from the corners of his mouth.

"I'm fine—" she tried.

"Go."

"But you didn't need my blood last time you—"

"This isn't the same thing, Yugi," his eyes shivered, and the hand gripping the tub turned white from bulging tendons. "I don't know what's happening to me, but when I'm weak it always takes over. I can already feel it there, waiting, and I will not—get out of my damn house."

"But why are you weak? Why is this—"

"It doesn't matter!" he pushed off the tub and shoved at her weakly. The skin of his hands had sunk in to his bones, and she could see that the gray was not pallor, but the black dark of his flesh showing through thinning skin. She could see the knobs of his knuckle bones as though through plastic wrap.

"Please, Yugi, don't make me live through killing another loved one."

But her mind had frozen, eyes glued to those sickly hands of his. A great wave of something hot and fiery was rising up, threatening to choke her off unless she moved, unless she did something, now.

A brief image flashed into her mind's eye, like lightning. Atem, standing in the brilliant sun, his face tilted up towards it, dark lashes fanned out against his cheeks. No pain, no flinching, and no pink pit-like scar on his chest. Just sun and Atem.

As fast as she could, hoping to be faster than she could think, she bit hard on the scabbed over bruises in her arm where Atem had bitten her and tore. Her canines, while not vampiric, were sharp enough to catch on the edges of those holes.

A sort of throaty groan and cry in one came from Atem, but she had her arm in his mouth the moment he opened it.

"You said you were my slave," she ground out. "You said I had earned nothing less. Then keep your word and do as I say and drink my blood!"

She didn't know what had moved her to do it. Wasn't it the same blood that was making him sick and possibly killing him? But the rising fire in her gut wouldn't allow her to go by without doing something, and if her body had managed to use vampiric blood without being infected, then just maybe what was happening to Atem wasn't poisoning—but healing.

He clutched her arms, both to support himself as much as to hold her. Those dark sharp eyes crumpled and clenched shut. Another pitiful whine unfit for a grown man left his throat, pleading.

But slowly, weakly, he closed his mouth around the old, bleeding wound.

She bit her tongue from the pain, but didn't let a peep escape her mouth. Rather, she let him slump into her chest with her forearm in his mouth, using her other arm to reach about his shoulders. She dug her fingers into his damp, heated hair.

"I'm not going to leave you like this, Atem. I can't."


	46. Instant Oatmeal

45

Her blood went down his throat like syrup. It did not flow easily like blood always had for him. He felt it slide down his chest and vanish into the painful heat his body had become as he'd thrown up. The nausea fought against it, but he swallowed it down.

If this was to be the last thing he could do for her, he would do it.

But finally he had to let go. His watering jaw cramped open, fangs exposed and dripping without any desire for blood. It spiked pain through every muscle about his skull than twined down his neck to twist his burning head into his screaming gut.

 _I'm on fire_ , he thought in alarm. There could be no other reason for pain and heat like this other than he had simply combusted.

The bathroom tiles had turned to ice. Even Yugi's warm touch was nothing against it.

He managed to uncoil just in time to get his face from her and throw up into the tub. Clumpy, dark blood poured in and black blots splotched his vision.

Then in horror he realized his bowls had let loose at the same time as he vomited and blood had pooled about his legs.

 _No. I'm liquidizing._

A screaming took up his mind, so he hadn't a thought to when tiny Yugi hefted him up and into the tub. He just flopped there on the bottom, staring as blood streamed down the white from his mouth and legs, soaking through his black pants.

He had seen a human disease sort of like this one, once. He had been going through Africa to get to the west coast and had been called upon by locals to see to a man with a frightening illness that made him vomit and pass blood like a river. Atem remembered the red bruises that had appeared on the man's arm after he had touched him to take his pulse. Every barrier in the man's body seemed to be disintegrating.

But there was no bile. No stomach acid. No feces or bruises to accompany this degree of viscera. He didn't even have the comfort of knowing what was happening to him, something he had always taken for granted as a healer.

He phased out of consciousness, only knowing that when he saw the side of the bathtub, it flooded him relief to know his instincts hadn't run away with his body before the pain and burning overrode him once more. Each bout of consciousness ended with him either vomiting more blood or passing out again. There was hot water pouring over him, at one point. Then cold. Yugi's voice.

But it was all fading. Each time he came back up he perceived less, and each time he knew he was dying.

Though having his longtime wish granted didn't make him as happy as he had hoped.

Somewhere among the black, the pain, the blood, and the fire, he somehow drifted into a dream, blurred and ultra colored by his feverish mind. Yugi stood there, veiled and robed in the traditional gold and white garb as a bride of his village would have been. Only her large, amethyst eyes and pale hands could be seen amongst all the finest silks and satins and gold, but they had been carefully outlined with coal and shone as the capstone to the image she made. All the beautiful cloth served its purpose to heighten and protect the sacred curves of her body and the priceless soul they housed. Even as he thought of her slim form, the cloth became gossamer, sheer, and somehow the gold and silk had become merely drapes hung about her shoulders and hips. She was just as he had seen her in his bathroom, except flushed with healthy color, softened with desire, and her arms held open to him.

And she didn't look like meat. She looked beautiful.

And he was gagging, heaving what had to be the very insides out of his throat. The blood burned and the taste of it had turned vile. It caused him to retch even more. Yet, somehow, it seemed familiar. His vision had gone dark, and he couldn't make out the white of the tub. He hadn't a clue how much time had passed, but he thought he could feel a steady vibrating in his bones. Perhaps he would shatter to death.

Yugi in a white hijab, though he could just make out her smile through the sun burning off of the white.

No blood, just vile burning acid past his throat. It tore at it, scorched it, and lingered in the back of his throat. He couldn't get enough air. It felt hard to breathe.

His mother working dough on the floor, chattering to a watching Yugi about babies and herbs. His father watching on, disapproval in his eyes. His son had no place in a woman's business, even if his mother had desperately needed his help. If only she had had a daughter as well. Perhaps that was why she smiled so wide at the little, pale Yugi. Her delicate, white hands were just right for cradling newborns.

He wasn't puking. Nor was he nauseous. The fire had passed, but he still hurt and stung from the burns and his insides had been torn and twisted into knots. It was so dark. So cold. It hurt. It hurt. His bones, his spine, his back, his insides, his brain-

He couldn't see her. But he dreamed of those hands, warm and delicate, caressing him. Warmth—water?—danced down him, so nice at first, but leaving him even colder than before. He slipped into the darkness, like a tide, than her warm hands tugged under his arms, bending his agony stricken body against what could have only been the edge of the tub. He wanted to wail in confused protest, but the combination of ice and pain pulled him under once more.

He came to wrapped in softness. Heavy, sinking into it, though his vision didn't move, nor did the microfiber strands of the blanket. His apartment was dark, darker than he remembered it, even as he registered that the old light in his kitchen was on. His attention was drawn to her figure slumped in a chair at the table, picking at a bowl of…something…it smelled…homey.

"Yugi?"

How she heard that croak of her name, he'd never know, but she snapped up and bounded over straightway.

"Atem! Oh, thank God, you're alive! You're alive, you're looking at me—Atem," she collapsed against the side of the beanbag, gripping his arm. Her eyes were red and puffy. "I thought I had killed you, I had only meant—I had this crazy idea that I had sort of anti-bodies in my blood and—and they were fighting the virus and that—I was stupid, I nearly, Atem." Her words broke off into sobs and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.

Murmuring her name, he forced his heavy forearm up and bumped the back of his knuckles against her wet cheek. It felt warm and soft. Not like meat or flesh or a membrane to be broken past, but just warm softness. He closed his eyes, drinking in the comfort that gave, and noticed her smell. It had become faint, but was still there just as warm and sugary and tinged with lavender.

And it didn't make his mouth water. It didn't make the back of his throat burn with want. Rather, it eased him even further, filling him with nostalgia and that continuing, comforting sense of belonging.

 _I really must be dying._

"It is alright," he breathed, rubbing the back of his hand against her wet cheek. The movement brought his attention to the tug at his arm. An IV had been taped there, the tube filled with a clear liquid. "Did you do that?"

She gave a heavy sniff and hiccupped. "I-I did the best I could, I figured—I figured you could use all that liquid and vitamins and—and your veins were sticking out so much and I was so afraid I'd do it wrong."

"You did fine." More than fine. There wasn't a bruise or anything. But, then, a vampire wouldn't be bruised by something as little as an IV, would they?

But, then, after how much blood he had lost, would he even have any left to keep up with that super healing? Even as he thought that, he couldn't help but notice the smell of the something on the table again. It nagged at him, and something ached in his gut.

"Yugi, what's on the table?"

Sniff. "Just some of that instant oatmeal you got me. I was—I was getting light headed and figured I should—should at least try to eat."

Oh yeah. It had been maple flavored or something. Grains had always been especially nauseating to him, but oatmeal had important nutrients he had wanted for Yugi. Maybe that was why his stomach ached.

But if he could recognize anything by now, it would be nausea. This wasn't nausea.

His chest went tight, as thought something had inflated near the bottom of his throat.

"Could I…could I see it?"

Yugi gave him an odd look through those poor, puffy eyes, but fetched it without question. It was fortunate that he had a bean bag instead of a bed, as it already propped him up to receive the bowl from her. The old smell of grains and maple sugar rose to his nose, and he felt the corners of his jaw sting. No fangs lengthened, however.

Figuring he was probably dying anyways and puking one more time wouldn't make much of a difference, he picked out the spoon and slowly ladled a bite into his mouth.

He steeled himself for the gag reflex when the first taste of oatmeal touched his tongue, but it didn't come. Instead, a burst of sweet flavor exploded in his mouth, shooting pleasure to the tips of his toes. The next thing he knew it had slid down his throat with no sign of upheaval in sight. Trembling, disbelieving, he took another spoonful. Then another, still anticipating the swoop of his stomach tossing out the oatmeal. Then another.

"Atem?"

He looked up at her, having swallowed five bites with nothing. If anything, the hollow ache in his gut was dissipating. Could it be that he had been…hungry?

He reached out to her again. "Little one, let me smell you."

If the question had seemed odd to her, she didn't show it, pressing in close to him till her small, firm breasts pressed against his chest. A tingling heat came to life where they touched. An odd stirring heated up his stomach as well.

But this close, he could smell her more clearly now, sweet, welcoming, warm, but not bloody. He even pressed his face against the crook of her neck, breathing in till his head spun. No ache of fangs growing in. No desire to bite down or break skin. If anything, his stomach just grumbled for more oatmeal.

But her smell had changed in one regards. It was a smell he recognized well, as it had always given him a headache before. Hormones.

Yugi smelled like sex.

Forgetting the half-full bowl of oatmeal between them, he crushed her to him, pulling back her head only enough to press his mouth to hers. Her taste and the wet, soft feel of her lips sent shocks through his system, tingling, warming, awakening, addicting, wanting him to pull her nearer and nearer—

Yugi pushed away—and the next wonder occurred as she was able defy his strength easily, even weak as it was. He hadn't wanted to let go.

"Stop! You're getting oatmeal up my shirt!"

Sure enough, the smashed bowl between them had upended towards her, and oatmeal drenched through. But it didn't look like it was going up her shirt more than getting down her pants.

He tried to bend down to reach it without thinking, drugged with excitement, craving to feel that curve of her hip bone against his tongue. Of course he couldn't reach. Spines did not make thirty degree angles.

"Let me lick it up," he gasped.

" _Excuse me_?" She jerked back, but he grabbed onto her, locking his grip onto his forearm.

"You got oatmeal…" but his excitement ran out of patience and he crashed his mouth against hers again, giving a cry of exaltation in his throat when the same hot thrill of pleasure tingled down his spine.

She pushed at him at first, but just as his weak arms were falling, she seemed to give in and softened into him. That brought a greater reaction to his body than the oatmeal and the kiss combined and he found his jaw dropping to breathe her in as much as he could. Sky high, mindless with euphoria, he ran his hands under her shirt—or rather, his that she had borrowed–and up her back, glorying in the feel of soft skin instead of warm meat and the heat it spread into his groin.

It was the stirring of that long dead area that snapped him awake to his actions.

He pushed her away, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry, I…I just…" The sight of her flushed, half-lidded gaze nearly made him pull her back in again. Had this urge ever been this powerful? If he hadn't been fighting his own desires for blood for over two hundred years, the feel of her would have done him in. He would have been a slave to his passions.

But Yugi's eyes brightened and she gave him a weak, disbelieving, watery smile.

"Vampires don't have a sex drive," she said.

"Just the smell of oatmeal makes me puke," he said back, "and yet I still want to lick it off your stomach –not that I will, that's just—I'm—Yugi, you need to get off, this is—"

"Atem," she broke across him, bringing her hands up to cup his face. "Atem, your eyes have gotten darker. They're quite pretty."

He stared into her eyes longer than he ever had anyone else before in his life, stunned. Neither of them seem to want to say it aloud, afraid to jinx it, hardly daring to believe it.

At long last, possibly because the hot ache in his gut and between his legs was starting to hurt, he cleared his throat.

"We…we should wait and see before…before doing anything." Oh gods, alone in the house with her. At least his arms now felt too tired to even raise themselves to touch her, let alone hold her down. Not to mention he hurt as though his body had been thrown beneath an oncoming bus.

"Right." She wiggled to get off and he didn't anticipate the moan it would push out from his mouth.

He flushed. "Gods, I'm sorry, I didn't expect…I didn't think…"

"It's alright," she said, and the widening of her smile meant it. "Really. It's alright. Everything," her voice cracked and tears leaked out her eyes again. "Everything, finally, is going to be alright."


	47. Post-Apocolypse Clause

**Sorry about the late chapter. I took a break from writing to remind myself why I do it because I was getting to worked up over marketing and being successful as an author and all that schmuck.**

 **The result was kind of funny, actually. I ended up being woken up at 5 in the morning several times and unable to go back to sleep because my brain was writing stories and wouldn't shut up. When I was asleep I was dreaming of writing stories, and my dreams played out the stories while I wrote them. Gal, I was so tired. I am not a night, morning, or overall can go without sleep person, and the fact that the stories were haunting me...**

 **Needless to say, it's like finally being able to pop a huge zit to be able to sit down and write this chapter. So satisfying. Hopefully this allows me to sleep tonight.**

 **So, I guess I know why I write. Because I'm addicted and I wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise. Ooo, yay, so inspiring and beautiful and deep and going-out-to-save-the-world-ish. So encouraging-pfft. More like threatening. What the crap is wrong with me?**

46

When Seto came to he was somewhere dark, cool, and Mokuba crouched in front of him. The younger boy's eyes had seemed to grow too large for his pale face, and he had his hands tucked close to his gut, as though afraid something would pop out or go for his innards.

"Seto?" he said in a tiny voice.

Slowly, he sat up, testing himself for pain or wounds and found none. His instincts must have taken over again, like it had back in the jail. It seemed to be doing that more lately than he'd like to admit.

His mind shifted back, searching for the moment when he had fallen. The memories were blurry, at best. He remembered following his momentary visions to a dark, slummy neighborhood that made the old vampire's and Joey's neighborhood look like prime real estate. He had hoped to find his brother already satiated for blood and hiding in a corner, but when he did find him he was still every bit the monster he had seen him: on all fours, front of his shirt soaked through with blood, whites of his eyes bulging out to the point his eyelids had been lost, fangs bared, skin stretched and oh, the sounds. The guttural, almost sexual noises as he worried through the chest of a dead man. The high pitched, pig like squeal when Seto had pulled him off, and Joey had been…

 _Joey._

"Seto?" The word didn't echo, too quiet to bounce off the cement and garbage. Seto thought he could see dark shapes laying on the floors next to the parking garage pillars. Dark blood stains speckled from the sprawled pile of bodies.

So that had happened again too…

Seto looked down at himself again. The blood he expected. The torn clothes, that too. But Mokuba alone couldn't have brought him down here.

"Where's Joey?" he asked.

"I-I don't know."

His brother sounded much as he looked: brittle. So, Seto sat up and very carefully gathered his younger brother into his arms. Mokuba returned the embrace and took a very fragile, shuttering deep breath.

"I'm okay," he said.

Seto didn't argue. Just squeezed his brother tighter and stared at the pile of bodies, even as his brain told him not to. Business clothes. Shirts and jeans. A woman was missing a heel. One man had dark hair stark against his pale arms, but a balding scalp. His mouth was open, and it was purple gray. Purple gray and framed by a dark mustache.

It was a minute before he realized Mokuba was shaking him.

"Stop."

"I'm not doing anything," said Seto.

"Don't look at them. It wasn't us."

And yet, he felt cold. Soul deep and numb. It hurt. It unnerved him. And it wasn't until Mokuba stood and took his hands to help him up that he realized he was shaking. And in that same moment, with stark clarity, he wanted her. He wanted her warmth, her cocky grin, her chocolate eyes lit by the sunset. He wanted the strength that had brought her, anemic and weak, to demand that he help her save her friend.

"Where's Joey?"

"I'm sorry, Seto, I already said I don't know," and now Mokuba's voice had broken into plaintive. "I tried to keep track of her, I really did, I swear."

"Calm down. We're the ones who came to find you. I thought she'd at least be here…" Seto didn't mention that Joey had an official, unhealthy attachment to his blood that her instincts would have kept her around for. He tried a tentative sniff of the air in hopes his heightened smell would track her down, but, for yet the seventh hundredth time, he found himself regretting that he never paid attention to smell. But he knew her smell, he told himself. Remember it. Chocolate and…rosemary…thyme…like the smell of a home that had held many warm, family dinners and holidays…

"Seto?"

"I'm just trying to see if I can smell her…" Yeah, a bit of heat came to his face admitting that. But it was better than having Mokuba wonder other things as he stood there with his eyes closed and sniffed loudly.

He tried to block out his embarrassment as he shifted through the incoming stimuli. Sweetness from ahead, by the bodies…Mokuba, he new that smell too, a scent matured from the baby blankets Mokuba had been brought home in. Sharp, throat burning of old car fumes and gasoline…

There. Chocolate and thyme. Sprinkled on the edge towards a thin line of something colder and fresher. Air.

Taking Mokuba's hand, he opened his eyes and made his way towards the smell, his head spinning a bit from too much oxygen. Mokuba said nothing, and his smaller hand was knobby and cold in his grip, but blessedly dry. Seto's hand wasn't so much.

The line of air led him to greasy metal iron stairs, which took them up to a level just below ground level. Bright (at least to them) gray moonlight shone through the gap between the street level and the ceiling. The coldness, because somehow coldness had a smell, came from the fresh air coming through this gap. It sunk down to the floor and stirred the smells like a ladle in a pot, and among those smells was the chocolate and spices, which thickened deeper in. Up against the smell of cold, he thought Joey's smell could only be described as warm, at least compared to that which he had been breathing downstairs. Less dry, somehow.

"Joey?" he called.

But only his voice answered back.

Giving Mokuba's hand a squeeze for comfort, he stepped past cars, deeper into the darkness of the parking lot. Joey's scent had hardly any of the sweet tang that the spent bodies downstairs had had.

Then, as he rounded a pillar and a large SUV, he caught sight of a familiar figure clad in ill fitted sweats curled up against the wall, arms wrapped tight about their legs. Seto sped up, letting go of Mokuba's hand in his rush to reach her.

"Joey, why didn't you answer?"

The ball flinched and a too-white face popped up. Her eyes had the same, hollowed out look that Mokuba's had, too bright, too wide. Her blond hair was everywhere.

"Oh…" she gulped. "Hey."

He didn't miss how she flinched again when he dropped at her side. "How are you on blood? Are you hurt?" He reached out to touch her, some trembling thing inside of him desperate for that comfort.

She recoiled from the touch, or, as much as she could pressed against the wall as she was. He hesitated, cold, numb, painful mind whirring. Joey was in her right mind and wouldn't have fed on humans. That meant the only reason for that look and her drawing back…

Mokuba reached the words before he did.

"That wasn't him who killed those people, Joey."

"I know," she said, albeit weakly. "I know. If anyone does, it's mean, I've woken up with my teeth in freaking people more times than I can count just in the last week. Seriously, I know, it's just…" her voice was pitching, growing reedy. "I know, I know that, I'm fine, I really am, how can you think—I'm tougher than that, I can—I can take care of myself—"

Mokuba moved around him, reaching for her with soft hushing sounds. As Joey started to tremble violently with sharp, keening sounds that were barely words at all and his little brother steadily patted her hair and whispered, Seto got the distinct impression that this had happened before. Joey was falling apart a foot away from him, and it was his brother who was picking up the pieces, not him.

Somehow, that broke him. He had done this. And now he wasn't being allowed to fix it. Possible couldn't.

A vibrating in his back pocket precluded a faint, business like chime. He took a second to wonder that his phone was still in his pocket, having forgotten that he had swiped it along with his wallet on his way out of the jail. Next miracle was that it had remained in his scrub's cheap pocket through all the commotion, let alone unscathed.

He put it to his ear. "Yugi or Atem?"

" _Yugi_ ," said the little voice at the other end. " _Look, you need to get back here. Atem was cured—he's eating people food and not wanting blood after, like, losing every ounce in his body, and Joey—hey!"_

Suddenly, the speaker crackled with the swipe of fabric. A heavy base replaced hers.

" _You come near her and I will kill you."_

Kaiba had never actually heard Atem's business tone like this, though he had always known it was there, hiding on the edge of every threat the older vampire had given during their lessons. He would never admit how it gave him chills.

As was his knee-jerk response to threats, Kaiba smirked.

"From what I just heard, that might be a little impossible."

" _I've killed you before. I'll do it again."_

A polite beep from the phone told him the call had ended.

Blinking, Seto stared at his phone.

"What was that about?" asked Mokuba, who was still rubbing a wheezing Joey's back even as he looked at Seto.

Seto just shook his head, a painful hope screaming into existence like an overexcited toddler. Even as it came at him, running and screeching, it was horrible and terrifying, taking over the reins and pulling him up. There would be no avoiding it. He had to verify Yugi's word—the girl should be dead anyways. The way Atem had been when he left would have brought no other fate.

But, even with the noisy, overwhelming hope racketing around in his chest, Seto managed to force himself to think. Why would Atem threaten him so harshly if it wasn't true? Him becoming human, or anything like to it, meant Yugi's blood was a cure, which made every vampire alive an especial danger to her more than anyone else, especially if Seto was correct in thinking Atem's opinion of him was that of one who followed his own agendas no matter who was sacrificed in the process.

As to whether Atem could kill him, he was welcome to try. It wasn't as if Seto as all too attached to this life, which the pile of bodies and Joey hyperventilating against a greasy parking garage wall summed up perfectly.

But even as he turned, mouth opening to gather up his brother and Joey, the adrenaline spiking his mind cleared the clouds of memories.

Guns. Soldiers had filled the streets. They had cornered Mokuba, but the bullets only deepened Mokuba's primal instincts. Even as Seto had jumped forward, a bullet had taken out his brother's eye and splattered brains against the chain link fence behind him. It had done nothing to stop his brother's leap into the soldier's face.

The bullets had torn through him as well as Seto had turned on them.

The only thing those men had been able to stop was Seto's consciousness.

But would they still be out there at night? Surely they would have discovered by now that no amount of bullets would stop vampires. But wouldn't that mean they would try explosives next? Open firing on, essentially, sick civilians in the middle of the city—people had been running from the site and everything…

"Mokuba, do you know what it looks like outside?"

"Last time I checked there wasn't anyone about, but there's helicopters flying over every ten minutes or so and I heard some explosions in the distance. No gunfire, though. At least, not that I can tell."

He was about to ask about traffic or news he might have heard, than realized he was being an idiot and took out his phone. He had to leave the two towards the gray moonlit end to get signal, but it wasn't like his presence was helping anything anyways.

The news flashed onto his phone's screen in brilliant red, white, and black.

 _CITY EVACUATION. PLAGUE. MILITARY ZONE._

What followed were urgent, but straight forward, instructions for civilian evacuation, listing zones and what times they were to be done, along with warnings and signs of infection to look out for. Some not even Seto had thought to notice.

A few pictures and about a dozen or cursory glances at articles told him everything Atem and he had figured would happen had, and more. Army boundary around the city. Reinforcements from other counties, other states, even. Fire power. Air power. Overall mayhem and chaos as people fought to escape. Videos and pictures of vampires attacking people with terrifying speed and power. Vampires going wild as they were sprayed with bullets. The unlucky dozens trampled by stampeding crowds. Checkpoints kept in tenuous order by bullet point as people were let through one by one to be tested for vampirism.

"Just your classic sci-fi horror film," he muttered to himself.

Honestly, if he weren't in the middle of it all, he would have laughed.

At the sound of his name, he looked up to see Mokuba and a somewhat composed Joey at his side, sniffling and vulnerable looking. Seeing her that way gave Seto a strong urge to engulf her in his arms, something he did not feel, nor had ever planned on feeling.

Mokuba gave him the ghost of his trademark Kaiba smile. "So, bro, what's the plan?"

"First, we need to get back to the mansion." Seto clicked off his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. It was about to die anyways. "You still know how to hot wire cars? I think I saw an SUV back there that might be old enough."

A true smirk broke through the ghost attempt. "I knew this day would come!"

"Yes yes, you're awesome, bravo, I still won't try to save your ass if you attempt any grand theft auto. I wrote it down in contract for a reason."

Mokuba snorted and rubbed a finger under his nose, and the cheeky, mischievous expression warmed Seto down to his toes. The numbness didn't hurt so much anymore.

"Post-apocalypse clause, Seto. I put that in there for a reason."

"Wait, you seriously wrote a contract with your brother about his hot-wire abilities?" Joey asked.

"Hot-wire classes," said Seto, as he set off to lead them towards said SUV.

"And lock-picking, security disarming, and overall breaking and entering like a ninja classes," said Mokuba.

"…what kind of brother are you?"

"Only the most awesome kind!" chirped Mokuba.

"More like the multi-billionaire kind who knows his younger brother will be kidnapped for those same reasons."

"Well, I guess if you put it like that…but why a contract?"

"Is that the one?" Mokuba called, pointing to a green Ford suburban. It looked to be a model from the 80's, and in excellent condition for its age.

Seto ignored the little thrill of relief he was getting from Joey talking directly to him rather than muttering as a shaken mess and said, "So I don't have to hear Mokuba's complaints if he lands himself in jail for being stupid and I don't spend a penny on bailing him out."

"Like I'd do something to get me in jail," Mokuba said, even as he examined the door as though it were an especially promising Christmas present. "Anyone got a metal hanger?"

In answer, Seto smashed his elbow into the window.

Mokuba grimaced at the torn green sleeve and Seto's already healing skin. "Now that's cheating."

"Post-apocalypse." Seto unlocked the door and opened it. "Get to it."


	48. At Sunset

47

Yugi caught her broken-screen phone before Atem could pocket it.

"What are you doing?!"

"He's a vampire," he said harshly, and she didn't miss how his legs shook. He shouldn't be up.

"I'd like to think if he was going to kill me—"

"That was before you seemingly cured me. Do you have any idea…" he stopped to take a steadying breath and closed his eyes. Just as she was wondering just how angry he was, his knees buckled.

Short for a man or not, he was still larger than her and she dropped trying to catch him.

"Seriously, Atem? Like you're going to be killing anyone in this state."

"Ugh, my head…"

"Look, I won't go blabbing to anyone about this, so please go back to resting. You pulled out your IV and everything, honestly."

A trembling hand reached up to squeeze her forearm. "Yugi…we have to leave."

"Not like this, we don't."

"No. Now. Can you drive?"

Yugi bit her bottom lip, flaked and dried as it was. The skin had worn so thin she could taste blood, without having ever broken through it. She had had nothing else to do but watch the news while Atem had been sick, so she knew about the city wide evacuation of the healthy, but it had taken every ounce of her strength to pull Atem from the tub and to the bean bag let alone down three flights of very rickety stairs and across a parking lot. And with him like this…

"Atem, if we leave with you like this…you're not a vampire anymore, you don't have any super strength or whatever."

His breathing had turned shallow, and for a moment she thought he had lost consciousness. But then the muscles against her chest and under her hands tensed and he tipped up and over his knees, breathing shaky.

"I can't…I can't leave you here in a city of monsters."

"Atem, you were just one of those monsters. They're just sick people—"

"No," he snapped. "Don't you ever say that. It doesn't matter how a monster is made or where it comes from, a monster is still a monster. The people themselves may mean you know harm, but the parasite, the disease…" he coughed, a raspy, hacking thing that sounded more painful than forceful.

Yugi jumped up to get him some water. He drank it in slow sips, although there was a tension in his hand that told her he wished to inhale it. He brought the glass down with a loud gasp and words she couldn't understand. Then he opened his eyes to find her and leaned his head onto her shoulder.

For a while they just sat there with Atem breathing and Yugi supporting him. His brow still radiated heat. She traced her hand on the back of his neck to prove it.

"You still have a fever," she said.

He grunted. Her hand roamed from his neck to a shoulder, feeling the curves of muscle and bone. The blackness had left his veins a while ago, but his skin still held some of the unnatural, gray pallor. His back curved down to the gray boxers she had found and managed to get up his legs. She had gotten over being embarrassed the day previously. After the blood and gore he had expelled, wrinkly man bits hadn't seemed so horrifying.

She sighed. "Atem, let's get you back to the bean bag."

"No," but it was more of a whine than a command.

"You're still sick."

"If I go back, I'll fall asleep."

"That's kind of the point."

"I can't. I have to keep you safe. I have to…"

"How? You just passed out from standing and your burning up. If anything, I'll be protecting you."

He gave an angry, dismayed groan and pushed off of her, wagging his head back and forth. His wild, spiky hair was more crazy than usual and stringy with grease and old sweat. But just as soon as he pulled away, he fell back to her again, this time in a desperately weak embrace. With so much of him pressed to her, his trembling vibrated over to her.

"Out of all the worst times to have your dreams come true…" he squeezed her, or more like his arm muscles spasmed at his attempts before giving up and going back to just hanging on her. With an almost inaudible whine, he murmured her name and turned his face to nuzzle into the side of her neck, sending shivers down through her legs.

"Look, as long as I keep the door locked, there should be no reason for anything to get in. We'll be okay. Have you had enough to eat?"

He sighed. "I shouldn't eat more. My systems probably akin to a famine victim's right now. I probably shouldn't be eating oatmeal at all, but something more like cream of wheat or baby rice cereal."

"I could always run down to that girl's apartment below—"

"No." The firmness in which he said it startled her.

"It's just down the stairs. And it's still light outside."

"I'm fine, Yugi. Do not step outside that door…please."

She wrinkled her nose. It was like she was captive in his house all over again. But sighed. They'd have a chance to have a healthy relationship when all this was over.

"If you'll go back to the bean bag…"

Another angry grunt. "Fine."

With that, he allowed her to get under an arm and help him to his feet. He managed the few feet to the bean bag with only limited support from her before his knees buckled again and she thought she saw his eyes roll up into the back of his head.

She threw the thick, fuzzy blanket over him, and once she was sure he wasn't going to be back up again anytime, she allowed herself to wearily slump into the kitchen for food. She hadn't exactly slept the past two or so days—had it really only been that long? She remembered eating whenever her head felt light, but besides the oatmeal, there was only some apples left. She wondered if Atem hadn't remember how much people actually ate.

She redid the bandages on the arm Atem had bitten. After eating some oatmeal, her stomach still grumbled and she glanced at the clock. There would only be daylight for another hour.

 _It's only downstairs_ , she thought, and Atem had already taken care of the vampire down there, so surely no one would hold it against her if she got some food from there. He'd be angry when she came up with the baby cereal, but if she was okay he couldn't be too angry with her. Besides, if it got too bad she could just blow on him and he'd pass out again. He was probably being so paranoid because, for the first time in over 200 years, he was essentially as weak as a baby. The thought made her frown with sympathy.

As the hour leaked away and her stomach began to gnaw for something other than too-sweet instant oatmeal, she checked on Atem, and found he hadn't moved a centimeter from when he had collapsed, smiled.

"Good boy," she whispered. Then looked at the door. What were the chances something would happen in the minute or so it took to zip down, grab some food, and zip back up? In daylight? Pfft, she was being paranoid.

Still, her hands were sweating as she turned the doorknob and eased the door open. The weather strips crackled, but otherwise the hinges didn't so much as click. Just in case she had to return back quickly, she left the door open a cracked, squinting into the setting sun all the while. Some part of her system felt a shock at seeing daylight after so long. It felt nice. She almost wanted to take her time pattering down the steps and passed one other door to Atem's ex-patient. Red flecked the edge of the faux-wood door.

As Yugi had hoped, the apartment was unlocked, and she stepped in wearily. The thick, metallic scent of blood gave her pause, but not as much as it would have before she had to tend to a blood-expelling, dying vampire. It still made her stomach squirm nauseously. Atem probably would never know how sick he had made her.

The floor, strewn with toys and bits of clothes, was splattered with dark red. Great sweeps through it, like a blood-wet mop had gone through it, told her of the brief scrabble Atem had had with the newly minted vampire, but there was no sign of a body. For that, Yugi was grateful. She didn't know how much trauma she was going to have to deal with once this was all over.

The pantry was in the same place Atem's was, and Yugi found the baby cereal readily enough. It wasn't all that organized, and some of the boxes of snacks and crackers were empty, but she found some Pasta Roni and other stuff before closing the door and scuttling to the fridge. There she found a grocery bag, some milk that was still good, along with some eggs, butter, and an almost empty bag of carrots.

Loot in hand, she bumped the fridge closed and half trotted back outside, taking care to close the blood splattered door behind her, even though she knew no one was coming home. On every step back upstairs, her heart pounded and she couldn't help but feel like something was following her, like a child does going up the basement stairs in the dark. But she reached Atem's apartment with no heinous monster dropping down or her guts spontaneously bursting out of her. When she saw Atem still out cold, she could barely contain a little squeal of glee at her daring. She bumped her butt against the door to close it.

And never heard it click shut.

Not thinking anything of it, she turned to close it more firmly, only having to step back as it swung open, an slender, unassuming figure pushing it back. Even as she took in the thick, white-blond hair, the backlight of the red sunlight making the tips more strawberry blond than white, her eyes were arrested on his.

Black, with red irises. Just like that other vampire, the one that had…

"No need to be alarmed," he said with a smooth, gentle silkiness. "I'm not going to hurt you, little one."

Hearing Atem's nickname from the stranger's lips did her in. The grocery bag dropped.

The slap of boxes woke Atem with a jolt. "Wh-Yugi…" She heard his sharp intake of breath. "Damn it, Yugi—"

"If I meant to kill you, I would have already. Please, calm yourself, Atem Yami." The black eyes fell on Yugi, and the smile he gave her was surprisingly normal despite them. "May I come in?"

"No." Atem struggled to his feet, holding his shoulders back. "Get out before I tear out your heart."

"Oh, I don't think you'll be doing that anytime soon. Not as a human, anyways."

Despite herself, Yugi backed away, trembling. _He knew._

The young man took that chance to step inside and close the door behind him. It was only then that Yugi realized the sunlight, however faded it was, hadn't seemed to bother him in the least.

The black eyes and smile didn't leave Yugi.

"I've been looking for you, little one. I'm sorry Bakura had to be the first to find you. His self-control is nonexistent on the best of days, but his talents made him indispensible." He crouched down and gathered up the spilled boxes of Pasta Roni into the bag and stood to hand it to her. "And I don't know of any as old as I who don't have some screw or other loose."

There was something about his voice that Yugi found familiar. She couldn't very well call it accent, but his words were almost overly precise—like Atem's, she realized with a jolt.

Atem stepped between them. His legs didn't shake, but his clenched fists did. Even if he wasn't shaking, though, being only dressed in boxers couldn't be all that intimidating, and she found herself vehemently wishing she had nagged him into some pants before pushing him to sleep.

Even though, the black eyed stranger didn't seem to pay Atem's attire any mind. "Your protectiveness is warranted. Those like her are as rare as they get, and quickly killed before their gifts can be used."

"Then make it quick," Atem said. "Vampire or not, I've been killing your kind for a very long time."

The young man gave a puff of humor and rolled his eyes. "Please." Then he reached out and pushed Atem to the side. Atem stumbled heavily into the wall, where he hung, hissing, legs trembling once more.

Which meant Yugi found herself face to face with the vampire once more, who simply held out the bag of food again.

"Little one, you're coming with me. I fear you have no choice. The city is in besieged by demons and you're their only cure. And even if your knight here were what he once was, not even he could protect you against what is to come."

Yugi looked at him, than to the bag, then to Atem, who seemed to be fighting against sliding to the floor. His strained, narrow black gaze looked to her, wild, terrified.

Seeing that summoned forth a familiar cool within her, the same which came when she played her horro games, except fiercer, and turned her hardened gaze to the vampire.

"And why would I be any safer with you?"

"Because I need you, not to be cured. No, I have no interest in that."

"Then what?"

"Well," something shifted on his face, but the blackness of his eyes made them too alien to read easily. "I don't think you've noticed, but the world is changing. The plague of demons is spreading and will keep spreading, and unless they have a hope for a cure, this city shall be destroyed off the face of the planet. But with you—"

"You could hold the city ransom," grunted Atem, who somehow managed to push himself upright again. "You did this. You and Bakura. You set this plague about."

"Very true," said the man, almost happily. "But it's really thanks to this young woman's existence that it was even possible. Bakura was doing it anyways for entertainment purposes, but I thought our little blood-thirsty community could do with more direction. Pity you're now immune. Not much use for you now except for food, unless," and his smile turned twisted, leery, almost. "Little one here needs you for her cooperation. We need more with her blood anyways, and you'll do as good as the next male."

A hot shudder spiked down her back.

"But, like I said, I mean you no harm. Killing you, Atem, would only make spreading the word that much harder. Besides, I'm sure there's quite a few out there who would love a taste of you themselves. I heard you killed a few relatives of theirs. So, shall we be off?" he glanced around Atem's small apartment and his nose wrinkled with disgust. "This is hardly fit for a savior of humanity, or any sort of leader, really."

Atem's too warm hand gripped her wrist, hard, and pulled her close. Probably out of reflex, he bared his teeth at the vampire and, to Yugi and the other's apparent surprise, long fangs were revealed. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she could see the skin of Atem's back shift.

Atem didn't threaten. He just hissed, and the sound was just as unearthly as it had been before.

The other vampire's eyes widened. "Now that's interesting."

Atem only dropped his jaw and hissed louder. Something black budded from between his shoulder blades in earnest.

An instant later, he was down on the floor, his hand torn free of Yugi's wrist and the vampire standing above him as though through teleportation.

"I see why you like him," he said, turning back to Yugi. "But we really must be going. I'd rather not be part of a nuclear catastrophe." He held out a hand to her.

Yugi, cold, shaking as hard as the last dead leaf of a tree, clutched her hands hard to her chest.

"Can I at least have him?" she squeaked.

"I already said yes. It won't be such a chore to have children with someone you like, right?"

Yugi clenched together so hard, it hurt. This had to be a nightmare. A freaked out, weirdo nightmare. Any moment she was going to wake up and find she had just nodded off against Atem's leg as he slept away on the bean bag.

When she didn't respond, the vampire sighed and reached down to the unconscious Atem. Even though he wasn't much taller than him, he slung the man's body over his shoulder as though he were made of air.

"Forgive me, my name is Marik, and I have every intention of keeping you safe and happy. Please don't make me have to carry you out too. You really don't have any other option."

 _Only because you've made it so_ , she thought, even as she broke the ice about her legs and stumbled forward.

 **Author's Note:**

 **Frankly, guys, I don't know a good way to get them out of this. Even if Seto somehow finds them with his vision power, how are they to get out of the city or save the city? Or should they all should just be nuked.**


	49. Rough Medicine

48

Joey didn't want to be here anymore. In this car with Seto Kaiba. With vampires.

Granted, she was one too, not to mention Seto Kaiba was the only thing keeping her alive, and dying from Seto withdrawal had been a pain she didn't want to experience again. But from the day she was born, Josephine Wheeler hated nothing more than feeling dependent on someone. Yugi had been different. That was a give and take relationship, as all friendships were. She didn't feel like dead weight.

But with Kaiba…she was little more than a talking parasite. She couldn't even pay him back with her body—not that she wanted to! In fact, sex didn't sound all that attractive at all anymore. Thinking about it was like thinking about someone rubbing pee over another person. Stinky and messy. And, in the end, that's all sex was, wasn't it?

In the very back of the SUV, she watched the city go by. They avoided all the main streets and took a round about way through suburban's and dying parts of the city. In daylight, the only time she saw people was when they were in a car. But at night, they started to come out. But the bright eyes that seemed to glow on their own in the dark paid the Suburban any mind.

Kaiba mansion's neighborhood, if it could be called that, was dark and empty. The bump of the driveway's lip tapped up her, and down. Her throat hurt. When did it not?

In the dark, she once more saw her reflection in the window. Her brown eyes had started to glow a red-bronze.

Kaiba's had been purple. A beautiful, eerie violet that would have been beautiful if his eyes hadn't been popping and a flailing man beneath his hands.

The screams had barely been human. More piglike. Bugle like. Unearthly.

Then the memory of those same hands, warm, and tender about her, crashed in.

"Joey? You coming?"

Joey moved to crawl out from the back seat, but was stopped by her arms tight grip about her knees. Unable to remember when she had pulled them up, she eased them out and followed Mokuba out of the car. Kaiba was already across the spacious garage to the door inside. A few sports cars, the likes which Joey hadn't been able to see in real life let alone breathe on, separated them.

Kaiba looked back and Joey's stomach clenched.

"Come on, puppy. You've been here before."

Joey dropped her chin.

"Joey?"

"I'm fine," she said, pushing past Mokuba's inquiring look and around the super cars. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the money bounce back her reflection in silver, red, and sky blue.

 _Yugi_. How much Joey wished she hadn't had left her. And with a bloodless vampire, no less. If Seto hadn't knocked her out cold—

An acidic uprush of loathing brushed against her lungs, just to be tainted with hesitation. Because Yugi hadn't died, and his arms had been so careful.

 _There's a girl. Everything is going to be all right._

She hated that too.

Through the garage door, past the elaborate mud room, and into the kitchen, the mansion opened cold and dark. Had it always been this way? Hadn't there been sunlight at some point? There had been this huge porch-room thingy with walls of glass she had found all warm and…gal, she loved the sun. And she'd never see it again.

"Mokuba, in my shower there is an unmarked bottle. It shouldn't smell like anything. Bag it and throw it in with the B kit."

"Roger."

Joey watched the fluffy head trot off. She liked that kid too. Good boy.

"Oy."

She turned her head to the tall, angular figure of Kaiba leaning against the kitchen entryway. It was remarkable how he managed to look impressive in torn up, bloodied green scrubs. It was probably said blood. Or the strange, hardened intensity his eyes always had. In that, she could see a similarity with Atem's shark-like gaze. Both belonged to predators.

"You're thirsty. Get over here."

Her arms snapped about her. "No."

Kaiba frowned. "We don't have time for you to get over your trauma. Life is shitty and bloody right now, get over it and come over here now."

An old, familiar heat bristled up her back. Her hackles rose.

"You already forced me to leave my friend to die, don't you dare take this from me too."

To her surprise, he didn't rise up to match her fire. Rather, his frown lessened to a flat, thin line and the intensity in his eyes dimmed. For a flash of a second, she thought she caught a glimpse of a boy not much older than her.

Then it was gone and he just sighed.

"Once we get Yugi, we can cure you and you won't have to hear from me again. But until then, for all this to run smoothly, you need to listen to me. I have a little better hand on this than you."

"Oh ho, so you've run through a town full of vampires and pass an army blockade before? Damn, why don't I just take a bite out of that?"

His gaze narrowed and gained the intensity again. His folded arms dropped from his chest as he stomped towards her. Within a blink of an eye, that unnatural speed of his brought him looming above her. She scrambled, reaching for a door only to find a wall in her way. A hand slammed against the wall besides her head, and she heard plaster beneath the wall give in. The other hand clamped the back of her head, as hard and unyielding as that blue-eyed glare.

He ducked towards her and she clenched her jaw so tight it popped. Like hell was he about to—

But instead of warm neck crushed to her face, he dug his teeth into the ball of her shoulder.

With a closed mouth scream she pushed him away. But the damage was done. Her own blood leaked into her already stained shirt, the smell of it pungent and nauseating in one.

"Get away from me!"

"Not until you do as I say—"

"NO! You freaking monster! Get AWAY!"

Anger had quickly risen into plain old fear. She could see what she had seen in Kaiba all along now: her father. Brittle, fury incarnate, forceful, unyielding, all while showing just enough tenderness to secure the chains forever.

She felt her knees pinching, throat cramping up till she couldn't breathe. She would never get away. She would never be free. She would never, ever, know a home like Yugi's again.

In her moment of terrified weakness, Kaiba pushed her mouth to his throat. With a wimper, she bit in, and weakly allowed herself to be carried away in the sweetness.

When he finally let go of her, tears had drenched her cheeks and he had maneuvered her onto one of the benches by the door for taking off your shoes. She couldn't make out his expression through the tears as his thumbs brushed down her cheeks. But her throat didn't hurt, and she the fatigue she had gotten use to had gone away.

Then the blurred face drew close and his warm forehead pressed against hers.

"I'll get you out of this," he murmured.

She half sniffed, half sobbed.

"I will," he said.

"Asshole."

The forehead slid, as though he had nodded, then the unmistakable brush of his lips against her wet eyelashes. Slowly, and carefully.

"So just take your medicine, and don't die." His breath was so hot across her eyelids, they nearly dried instantly.

Whatever. She didn't care.

Finally, he drew back. Cold air replaced where he had been, and she shivered.

Her relief was short lived as he didn't leave, but took hold of her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Just leave me be, jerk wad."

"And risk you running off? I'd rather not."

"Like I could run off," she said all warbling, rubbing hard at her eyes with her other hand.

"I've seen you do stupider."

 **Author's Note: Yes, I know it's short. Yes, I'm going to put up another chapter. I keep my promises.**


	50. A Nice Car and Little Brother

49

Seto wished he did not have to force her. But even a moron could have seen she was running on all emotion, and any wire-like nerves that kept her in the here and now were thin as well. By the time she finally gave in to her cravings, who knew what state she would be in?

Still, he had just held himself back from kissing her. What an unseemly thing to do. Pointless in the extreme. Not to mention harmful. She didn't need his growing attachment. She didn't want it.

He led her around like a small child as he gathered the covert hunting gear he had used to stay hidden from a certain vampire as he hunted them. Knowing of a vampire's heightened sense, having become one of his own, he had paid extra to a private developer for the devices. No army in the world had such tools in hand, and he'd be depending on them to get them through the army blockade. Because, at this point, it was obvious this hellhole was going nowhere.

Down halls, through the kitchen, the tote from the attic, and down to the underground garage, her thin wrist told him stories of wired punches and a fragile grip. Then he handed it off into the back of the car and Mokuba plopped into the front seat.

It wasn't until he'd pulled back out onto the road that Mokuba remembered he was a little brother and had certain duties to attend to.

"Joey, you know Seto only did that because he's scared you might almost die again, right? He's really not that bad."

If he had been a lesser man, there would have been a violent brake check. The squirt had forgotten his seatbelt, after all.

"You—you saw that?" Joey sounded about as strangled as his pride did.

"Um…yeah."

Brat had probably been the only one remembering the urgency of their mission and had run the whole way, vampire speed and all.

"But it's nothing to worry about! I just don't want you to go thinking he's some abusive jerk to people he cares about."

"Mokuba." The amount of threat he injected into that one word had made grown men wilt.

But, having little brother powers, Mokuba just smiled. To anyone else it would have looked sweet and apologetic, even with the slight fang. But Seto had seen that same smile over too many disasters to find it innocent. It said that Mokuba knew very well that his big brother couldn't say anything to the contrary or else risk sounding like a teenage boy trying to protest against a crush everyone knew he had. Not to mention Seto Kaiba never needed to excuse himself or protest to begin with.

"He did the same thing to me when I got bronchitis once," Oh god, he was still talking. "We were just little and the medicine tasted like barf plastic, but he wrestled me down, plugged my nose—"

"Mokuba, that wasn't an invitation to keep talking."

"—and forced it down my throat."

"That sounds, um…"

Lord, he could hear her wincing. "Mokuba—"

"But I hadn't been able to sleep for days and was coughing so hard I puked! I would have gotten better, but he just gets all panicky and—"

Screw it.

Seto slammed on the brakes.

Mokuba got clothes lined by the glove box. Since the car was designed for silence, nothing covered the sickening crunch as his face hit the dash. If his brother hadn't had lightning quick, vampiric healing capabilities, Seto would have felt very guilty indeed.

"Am I going to have to put you in a booster seat until you remember what a seat belt is for?"

Mokuba peeled himself off the dash, glaring at him over his fingers as he pinched his bloodied nose.

"Seriously?" he asked thickly. "At seventy miles an hour?"

"Sounds about how fast your mouth was going."

"Wow, you must really care what she thinks."

"What's your problem?"

"Nothing! She was just seriously freaked out. What kind of jerk would just let her hurt in the back seat after you traumatized her?"

"I didn't traumatized her. I did what was necessary."

"Ha. Sure. Freaking—you broke my nose!"

"You weren't wearing a seat belt. And it'll be gone in a few minutes."

"You—"

"Um, guys?" came Joey's voice from the back seat.

"What?" Seto growled.

"Where are we going?"

"Back to Atem's place," said Mokuba, bundling up fistfuls of his shirt to stuff against his nose. "Why?"

"Because I seriously want out of this crazy house. We're like a freaking run of Happy Tree Friends waiting to happen. Two immortal vampires having a bloody fist fight, yeah."

"I would never punch my little brother," said Seto, offended by the mere suggestion, even as he inwardly smirked at his brother's glare. The truth of the statement wasn't as important to him as the sound of her normal tough cadence returned to her voice.

"Whatever, can we just go already?" But there was a smile there. Maybe.

Wanting to milk it for all it was worth, he closed his eyes to catch a glimpse of Yugi to report back to Joey before letting go of the brake….

But the shadows peeled away from a room he didn't recognize. Rather than the hovel of a studio, Yugi sat curled into the corner of a cream leather sofa, wrapped in gauzy purple fabric and ever pale with strain. Glass made up the wall pass her, showing only a half-lit skyline of nearby skyscrapers. Past their blinking, air traffic tips, a hazy, purple amber sky held no moon or star.

As he had come to expect, after the first split second of a glimpse, his head began to ache, as though giant hands pressed in. Even as he searched the skyline for a landmark or anything, it quickly escalated to piercing migraine.

He opened his eyes, wincing. Mokuba watched him, still pinching his nose.

"Seto?"

He glanced at Mokuba, wishing there were some way he could have taken a picture of what was in his head to show him. While Seto was brilliant, he didn't have the photographic memory that his hands-on brother had for the city.

"Change of plans. We're heading downtown." Maybe if he got atop a building…

Mokuba's eyebrows flew high. "What? Why?"

"What did you see?" Joey asked, her head suddenly appearing by his shoulder.

He pushed her face back. "Don't make me brake check you too."

Mokuba wrinkled his nose. "Wait, what? See? Did I miss something?"

He shoved the gear forward and rolled into motion. The heavily tinted windows showed only the shapes of the buildings and parked cars sliding past them. Every so often, a flash of street light or blowing eyes slipped past.

"Side note, Kaiba, your hand smells nasty."

"I didn't ask you to smell it. You buckled?"

"Yes, Daddy Drac. I'm all buckled in, so can I have a sucker now?"

Despite himself, and the thread-like panic tightening in his chest, he smiled.

 **Author's Note: Okay, these last two chapters were like pulling out teeth, but one of the characters is finally talking to me again so it is definitely picking up after this. } And soon we can get this puppy finished and out of the way.**


	51. Gilded Cage

**Yes, I know this chapter is short. I'll have another one updated today.**

 **Man, I'm tired and bummed...**

50

Atem's knee jerk reaction when he woke up was to check for blood. On finding none, neither on him or as an after taste in his mouth, it took him a moment to remember what had happened and why he felt so crummy. Only then did he give any attention to his surroundings.

It was a bare, albeit fine, bedroom. He lay on the only piece of furniture, a queen size bed, with basic blue sheets and fluffy brown comforter. Whoever brought him here had simply thrown him over the top of it all, and he found himself pulling up the comforter around him as he slid onto his feet, waited for the black to pass, and slowly waddled out of the room.

"Yugi?"

The short hall led to a high ceiling living space that was split into a living room and a kitchen. The wall to his left that framed the side of the living room was nothing but glass, and the site of it made him uneasy to the extreme. He nearly went right back into the bedroom. The little voice calling his name kept him shuffling forward.

He found her on a white leather couch, far too close to the glass wall for comfort. What she wore, however, distracted him from his plans of dragging her away from it, along with exploding heat from his toes to the top of his head. She curled up tighter on seeing his face.

"I didn't want to," she said.

Atem had no doubt about that. The filmy, purple baby-doll dress might have reached her knees, and he could tell with her legs pinched up, but whatever kind of panties they had given her, thong or otherwise, was made of matching purple lace.

It was also obvious that she was doing her best to disappear into the recesses of the couch.

Jaw tight, he pulled off the comforter from his shoulders and tossed it over her.

"Where is he?" he asked.

"I don't know," came the thin voice underneath. "But the door is bolted and bared shut from outside, and he said this is the top floor…not that either of us could break that glass."

Atem eyed the wall of glass, squashing the desire to urge her back to the bedroom and crawl beneath the covers with her even as his shivering picked up. Had he ever had to deal with being this cold as a vampire? And if the bastards were in the mood to hook them up with clothes, they could have at least given him a shirt and some pants. But boxers probably fit their purposes.

He hoped Yugi wouldn't notice how red his face and neck had probably become.

He walked through the elegant, modern kitchen, the small entryway and thick, knobless door, back to the lone bedroom and the master bathroom, then back to the vulnerable living room. There were no other windows in the apartment, though the glass wall stretched over the side of the bathroom, so he assumed it was one way, which helped him feel marginably better. By the time he made it back to Yugi's side, though, black dots popped across his vision and the muscles in his thighs were twitching. Only her large, doe-like eyes could be seen amidst all the fluffiness. The thought of a chocolate truffle crossed his mind and he felt lips twitch.

"You should sit down," she said. "You still don't look too good."

"I'd rather not here." His gaze darted to the glass wall. So exposed, and so high up. Who would want to have their home like this?

But he ended up having to sit down on the floor anyways, as his head threatened to roll off his shoulders. He brought up his knees and put his head between them. As he bent over, his back throbbed something awful and his head began to pound, radiating the pain to the rest of his body.

Great. Just great.

He'd only been there for a minute when the chocolate puff ball of Yugi slipped off the sofa and settled in front of him, letting the comforter pool across his feet and shins. He felt the soft silk of her thigh brush against his toes.

"Maybe this is for the best," she said quietly. "With how things are right now, even if we had made it out of the city…this way we'll at least be safe and provided for."

"We'll be a pair of breeding hamsters in a glass cage," he growled, his words rumbled back to him from his folded arms.

"But—"

"And we'll have no choice over what happens to our children. Besides that, do you even like me?"

"I like you."

"But do you love me? No, you don't, because you're young and you haven't even had a chance to see what the world has to offer. Not to mention you've only known me for little more than a week."

"You've only known me for the same time."

"But I've been alive for almost three hundred years. I've seen enough of people to know…that's not the point. You're getting out of here, even if it kills me."

The thigh on his toes shifted, blessedly hot like a steamy bath after a cold day compared to the warmth of the blanket.

And suddenly the chocolate truffle was open and thrown about him as well. He tensed up in the darkness, ultra aware of each heated brush of her body as she shifted in order to cover them both. With the warmth came her gentle, butterscotch perfume.

"You're shivering," she said, still sounding so small.

Her arms wrapped about one of his folded legs, hugging herself close and stitching her own legs through the gap beneath his knee. Her hair swallowed said knee and her soft cheek pressed against the outside of his thigh.

"I'm tired," he felt a much as heard. "And…this has gotten beyond me. I'm not strong enough to…I don't want you to die for something I don't need."

"Everyone needs freedom," he said sharply.

She sighed, and the breath ran up his thigh and heated a part of him he was out of practice ignoring. "Just…no, Atem. No more. I'm done."

They sat in silence for a bit. Despite the pain and weakness that still made his muscles twitch at the thought of moving, he found himself beginning to suffocate under her scent and warmth in a way that only made him feel like he had too much air. Only the circumstances and his fury at it kept him from pulling his leg from her, tipping forward, and burying himself in her. So soft and warm and vulnerable and sweet…

He jerked the blanket off of him, wincing as his weakened eyes fought to adjust to the sudden loss of darkness.

And saw the tears he hadn't felt dripping down the side of his leg.

Something within him cracked. He brought the blanket back down around her, tucking in the edges about her shivering form.

"Alright," he murmured. "You can be done. It's alright. You can give up. I'll take it from here, okay?"

In answer, her arms gave his leg a squeeze.

He took some time to tentively stroke her hair as he felt more tears run down. When she gave a noisy sniff, he extracted himself from the grasp of the truffle and got up to find some toilet paper, which he brought back as an offering to the sad fluffiness. Despite the ache in his chest, he couldn't help but smile as the toilet paper vanished into the chocolate folds and she blew her nose with little wet buzzes. He touched where he knew her back would be.

"Yugi…" but he changed his mind and got up to take another look around the apartment again.


	52. Seize the Choice

Yugi watched him from a crack in her cocoon. He got as far as the short hallway to the bathroom before he collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. She let him sit like that, percolating in his own light-headed frustration, before sniffing and crawling over to him, fluffy comforter and all.

She just gotten a hand on his calf when a series of clunks and clicks came from the door.

Marik, the gold blond, black eyed vampire stepped in, followed by two others holding grocery bags and a metal box, which they sat against the wall.

"Got you some goodies," he said to the room at large, than frowned once his eyes found Yugi. "I thought I said no covering up, little one?"

Yugi, who had been half out of her blanket anyways, retracted back into it without thinking, eyes on the huge, very male strangers behind him. At the same time, Atem straightened and managed to move himself between her and Marik.

"It doesn't matter what you put her in, I'm not going to do anything along those lines," he said heavily.

Marik wasn't fazed. "Oh, goodie, you're awake. Means you can take your medicine."

Yugi heard the crinkle of grocery bags, shuffling, the door reclosing, then heavy footsteps coming closer. Atem backed, pressing more blanket against her.

"You're wasting your energy, slayer. No one wants to keep her safe more than me. It's you you should be worried about."

Then Atem's weight vanished and his body thumped some distance away with a gasp of released air. Next thing she knew, a hard, claw-like hand took hold of her with irresistible strength and pulled her out of the blankets, holding her into the air by her arm for the barest of seconds before setting her on her feet. The vampire didn't let her go. Rather, he took a good look and drew far too close to smell her stomach and legs. Heat burst across her face and neck like fire. She never wanted to hide in a hole more than then.

"Mustn't have been awake long," he mused, eyes glancing to Atem's prone figure on the ground. He pulled her across the floor to the counter and onto one of two simple stools. There, a lackey had already set out a Styrofoam container and plastic utensils. Marik opened it for her, simpering.

"See there? I got you the best thing I could find. Fillet mignon, red potatoes, some vegetable things, I am almost certain you haven't been eating all that well on the run. And all that blood loss." He took up a spoon, ladled it with mashed potatoes, and brought it to her reluctant lips. "Open up, little one."

Despite herself, she arched back, clutching the stool between her legs.

"If you don't, I'll break one of your boy's fingers. It'll be like snapping a fresh carrot."

With a low whimper, Yugi opened her mouth and let the vampire scrape the potatoes off along her upper teeth. Despite the savory taste and the softness, swallowing hurt and made her stomach turn.

Marik flashed a toothy grin at her, revealing a mouth full of fangs. "See? Tasty."

To her relief, he left the spoon there. But then he went towards Atem's fallen form and, with a throaty grunt of disgust, took a handful of his thick, wild hair and proceeded to pull him to his feet. Atem gave a closed mouth yell and grabbed at his head even as Marik dragged him to the other stool, where he lifted him off of his feet as though he were as light as a toddler and stuffed him onto his stool. Atem just caught himself on the counter before tipping off.

"I put up with you for her," Marik said quietly, softly. "And if you don't start doing the only reason you're still alive, I'll break every bone in your body, one by one."

Atem, still clinging to the counter for dear life, smirked. "Go ahead. I won't."

"Oh, but think, Atem. Even if you don't do it, will she like watching you writhe on the floor in agony because of her? And do you really think you have the practice with a human body to control yourself if she decides to, I don't know, do whatever women do when they decide to rape a man?"

Atem's lips curled. "Break my bones."

"Oh, I will. But even once all that is done, and you're dead, I'll just bring in another more…willing. You know that, don't you?"

Atem said nothing, though Yugi could feel the fury radiating off him, like heat waves from a fire. Praying Marik find another reason to come close to her let alone touch her, she forced more spoonfuls of potatoes into her mouth.

There was a sharp thwack, followed by a short yip of surprised pain from Atem.

Marik snorted. "Imbecile. Eat your food and take your medicine, for her sake if not your own."

Yugi glanced to the side at him. Atem seemed to be rubbing his forehead furiously. But even as she saw the edge of his glare in his profile, he turned to his own Styrofoam box and shoved something sloppy and green into his mouth.

Marik patted his head. "Good boy."

Atem ignored him, even as the one eye she could see burned for murder.

She put her eyes down and focused on eating, which got easier the more she ate. She really had been starving, and the food was good, even I she had to wear practically nothing in a room full of men while she ate. Granted, none of them paid her any mind as they went about their business, unloading the metal box of things she couldn't make out and Marik came about to dispense pills to both her and Atem, who didn't look up once.

"And some milk," he said cheerfully, handing her a glass, though he didn't give Atem one. Instead he gave him a plastic bottle of some strange, thick, green goop. "And if I come back and that isn't all gone, another finger, my dear Atem."

It really wasn't that long that Marik was in there, though it felt like an eternity. But soon he was heading to the door with his unladen goons, smiles to the both of them.

"She still smells virgin when I come back, it will be a leg, Atem."

Atem paused long enough to level a look at the old vampire that Yugi couldn't see. Whatever it was, made Malik smirk, before closing the door behind them. Clicks and thunks followed as the locks were put back into place.

Yugi didn't slow in her eating, but Atem did. He stared at his Styrofoam meal, a collection of bland colored goo, and groaned.

"I know I should, but I can't…"

An uncomfortable twist came from her still heated, humiliated soul. "Can't sleep with me?"

Atem flinched and turned to glare at her, although it was more of a pained, sympathetic one. She got her first glimpse of the angry red welt on his forehead.

"Eat, Yugi. Damn it, I'm not going to sleep with you. End of story."

A part of her, the one that had just had to live through a humiliation no insecure teenage girl would have to do, died. "Am I that ugly?"

"Gods, no," he slapped his forehead at that. "Whether I find you attractive or not is out of the question. I'm not going to do it, even if he does break every bone in my body, which I'd like to see him try. Heh." He managed to get another spoonful of mush into his mouth, making a face as he did so.

Yugi shifted on her chair, the bare skin against wood for so long starting to hurt a bit. "Um…not that I'm, like, a creepy horny girl or whatever, but can I ask why? I mean…it's not like we have any other choice."

The look he shot her made her shudder.

"Really? I thought you of all people…" he shook his head and turned the look to his food. "Most of my life I didn't have the ability to choose what was morally right. My body would force me to do it. Now I finally have that choice and you'd think I would give that away so easily? Especially when it involves you?" His knuckles turned white and she heard the plastic spoon crack. "I've taken enough from you, Yugi. No way in hell am I going to take your virginity as well."

Yugi shifted again, blush rising even hotter than ever. "But…is it really that big of a deal? I mean, it's not like I'm going to be going anywhere else with anyone or…" she quelled at the half pitying, half furious glance he shot her before taking a heavy swig of his green smoothie.

"Even if you don't believe in the sacredness of sex," said Atem, low and severe. "I've seen the evidence of it over three hundered years, or rather, the abuse of it. It creates life, people, and bonds a man and woman together far deeper than any other act can, whether they want it to or not. To disrespect that is to disrespect the value of a human soul, and if I value any soul in this world, it is yours, Yugi. I will not degrade you or myself by having sex with you just because some evil lunatic wants to use you as his breeding dam. I will not let him, or even you, threaten me into it."

And with that, he angrily scooped up the last of his food with his broken spoon and shoved it into his mouth. Then he crunched the Styrofoam, tossed it into the kitchen somewhere, and slid off the stool. It would have served his indignation more dignity, however, if he didn't then crumple to the floor, out cold.

Yugi sighed as Atem's eyes slowly fluttered open a moment later.

"You really do sound like you'd enjoy being a professor." She cut into the filet mignon, actually starting to look forward to it now that she had no one glaring down her back. "Or some legionnaire captain, waving a sword as he gives his pep talk before battle."

"What, not a self-righteous priest?" he muttered as he sat himself up. "Ugh…head."

"Naw," she said around a bite of soft steak. "Why would I think that?"

"It's what I'd expect someone to think of me." He let out a breath of air. "Could you pass down that bottle of yuck? I might as well keep it to one broken bone."

She didn't have far to reach, and he didn't look up at her as she dropped it down next to him.

"Thanks."

Yugi just nodded, still too drained to put much care into anything. She slowly chewed through her steak. Then made her way through the veggies, more because she wasn't paying much attention to what her body was doing after the initial hunger went away. Then she slipped off the stool and melted onto the lush carpet with Atem, who kept his back to the wall of windows. She still wondered why a man who use to be able to fly would be nervous about a little height. But didn't he say something about 'vulnerable'?

A hushing sort of rumble started up in the walls, just on the edge of hearing. The heater must have turned on. At least, that's what she hoped. The filmy little purple dress didn't do squat to keeping her warm. At least they hadn't given her a thong. She didn't know if she could handle more humiliation of having to dig out butt floss from her crack.

Yawning, she tipped her head over to look at Atem, who rested his head on a rung of the stool, just below where Marik had flicked him. He didn't look all that warm either. Past him, she saw a small pile of wrapped food waiting, which had probably been what had been in the metal box.

"You know," she said, lazily tracing the pale curve of his slumped back. "I wouldn't mind, you know."

"Mind what?" he asked, all anger gone and now only weariness remaining.

"Sleeping with you. I don't mind giving you my virginity." Wow. She said that with a straight face and no blushing. Yay her.

He let out a long sigh. "No. Don't worry about me, Yugi. I'm not worth you anyways."

"Shouldn't I be the one to decide that?"

He hesitated. Then sighed again. "Just leave it alone. You're in no state to make such decisions, or at least I'm not going to believe any you make right now." He sat back, rolling his shoulders and popping his neck. "You can take the bed."

Slowly, he got up, taking his time and keeping his head low and raising it first, probably to prevent himself from passing out again. Then he shuffled to the sofa and collapsed on it.

She rolled to her feet, not sure what she wanted to do now. She was tired, sure, but a part of her felt she had slept too much over the past week or however long this eternity had gone for. And while drained, she couldn't just pretend that Marik had given that threat, or that he had no reason whatsoever not to pull through with it. But she couldn't very well force herself on him, could she? Not after he so vehemently protested his returned right to choose.

After who knew how long, she found herself still staring at the side of the sofa, shivering, and waiting for Atem to shift or sigh or anything that might say whether he was asleep or not.

It had been such a long time since she had first seen him in the alleyway and thought he was just some sort of prankster. Was he still that? A stranger whose business and goals were so far away from hers. And then he said he loved her. Her reason knew she should question that, but she couldn't. Not even once. The thought made her feel slightly sick, but then she remembered that empty, aching loneliness she had felt when he was finally gone, and how even Joey couldn't completely chase it away. Maybe that was just because this was the first time she'd felt close to a man other than her grandfather. Yeah. That had to be it. Girl's with absent daddy's tended to do stupid stuff like falling in love with guys who wanted to suck your blood too, didn't they? Figuratively of course.

She stood to go to bed, just to find herself staring out into the night and losing focus once more.

 _None of that matters anymore…._

Seto and Joey were still out there, sure, but how would they find them let alone get them out? And even if they did get out, where would they go? Should they go? When her blood held the key to ending this nightmare for everyone? Could she even live a normal life anymore after Atem?

She found herself standing next to the sofa, throwing the thick comforter over him. His eyes opened at its touch.

"No, you need this," he pushed it off him.

She just blinked at him. Then threw the blanket back on him. Before he could protest, she got down on the floor next to the couch, where the comforter spilled over, and curled up into it, pulling the excess over her and closing her eyes.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then he sighed yet again and stood up. When she thought he was just going to take the bed now and leave her on the floor, she couldn't care less, even though her heart gave a little squirm of protest. But then the lights switched off, leaving the apartment to be lit by the lights of the city that still glowed despite its emptiness.

Then he stepped past her and plopped down onto the couch. Once the leather stopped creaking, she felt his warm fingers on her head, petting down her hair.

"Everything will be all right, Yugi. It's okay to sleep."

She wanted to turn her head and bury it into the comforter draping the side of the couch, but feared if she moved he would stop touching her. He made soft hushing noises, then started to hum a lonesome, beautiful sort of tune that filled her heart with long journeys and warm, waiting arms at the end.


	53. Always Explosions in America

52

As sunlight broke over the horizon, Seto smirked and turned up the electronic tint on the car. Even so, they would have to wait until darkness to check the rooftops. Even sunglasses could only go so far in protecting a vampire's eyes, and he didn't have any welding helmets.

"We could always go find some," said Mokuba.

But then they'd have to go to the other side of town and then figure out a way to get gas—no. Seto already had a plan in place. Eyeing the skyscrapers to either side of him as he drove the eerie, empty downtown streets, he found a space and pulled over.

"Mokuba, did you bring your tablet?"

His brother sighed. "Nothing's changed. The only thing broadcasting is the evacuation order."

Seto gave him a flat stare, and Mokuba stared back. Than slapped his forehead.

"I'm an idiot. Hold on."

From a backpack between his legs, he dug it out along with a broadband transceiver, which he plugged in before setting it on his lap and getting to work.

Seto reached into the backseat to grab his own laptop, brushing the back of his hand against the sleeping Joey's knee as he did so. It was warm, and that reassured him, somehow.

"I take it you want back up scrambler for the firewall resets." Mokuba reached down to pull out a detachable keyboard as well, which was little more than a plate of clear plastic and invisible wires. "State Security or Pentagon?"

"Only the Federal powers could order an attack on civilians." He opened his laptop.

Mokuba didn't point out that, even if they did manage to hack into the US Army, they couldn't do much to stop them if an attack on the city had already been ordered. There were million minds and computers in the system and only the two of them. The best they could do was confuse a few shots, but, then, that was probably what Seto had in mind.

"While you set that up, I need to see about something."

Mokuba just nodded, already shuffling through black and white screens and html code.

Seto closed his eyes. He reached for the darkness in the footwells and in the back seat, where it was at its thickest. He felt a sleepy response curl back up into his mind.

The same wall of glass spread before him, with Yugi at the center. It took him a moment to find her in the pile of comforter, which also half swallowed Atem. Sunlight poured in, and he found himself pleased that at least his mind's eye was unaffected by the light.

Concentrating, he tried to push himself there, as he had the night he had seen Joey dying in the alley. Smells came to him first, of the plastic new carpet, old food, cleaner, and the heady sweet scent of the humans before the light cleared and he could see the skyline. He had already tried the night before to focus his vision on the buildings surrounding Yugi's perimeter, but found a new limit to his power. He could only see certain people who he focused on, and only a certain distance away from them. This meant he couldn't back up to see the building she was in or any of the others, which he found, to his growing disgust, that he couldn't make out which buildings curled in around the apartment. From the angle his vision permitted him, he could only see an opposing wall of one-way glass windows.

He came back with a gasp, catching himself on the steering wheel. Knives stabbed into his brain with each beat of his heart, drying his throat and tingeing his vision red.

"Maybe you should drink something," said Mokuba.

"Just give me a moment." He sucked a breath through his nose, clenching the hard leather of the wheel. The red backed off. The knives dulled to sticks.

Another unfortunate rule to his powers he had found was that he had to know the person in order to focus his visions. Trying to catch a glimpse of who or what had taken Yugi and Atem to this place had done nothing. He also couldn't see the future, though he had a theory that the glimpses he had seen of Joey before the unfortunate attack had been bits of her past. At the moment, however, he had no idea how to focus onto the past of Yugi or Atem to catch a glimpse of where they had gone, not for a lack of trying—which had almost left him vomiting from the pain.

"If only I could figure out what my talent is…" said Mokuba quietly.

He let himself have a moment to catch his breath before straightening and opening his laptop.

"Time to hack us some real news."

Seto didn't notice the time go by even less so than he had as a human. Since he didn't get hunger pangs, nor light headed from low blood sugar, there wasn't much to distract him. Nor did he have to go to the bathroom nearly as often. He did, however, find himself nodding off. When a huge, jaw cracking yawn finally broke him away, he found that Mokuba had fallen asleep as well. They really were like narcoleptics.

 _I can't wait to be human again_. Now that the possibility was actually in sight, a thrill went through him at the thought. To be able to sleep when he darn felt like it and not when his body forced him to, to eat, to not be in constant fear of accidentally murdering someone, to once more feel soft skin and not think about what it would feel like to sink his fangs into…

Ear-splitting thunder shook the whole car, jerking him awake from a sleep he didn't remember falling into. Joey and Mokuba woke with yelps.

From a street a few blocks ahead of them, a plume of debre and dust flew out like a gust of lava plume. Another pound of thunder sounded farther away.

At least they now knew what the army had planned next for the city.

Parts of a building collapsed across the road some distance ahead, mortar and glass shooting sky high like poofs of glitter, followed by a shockwave that shoved them into the back of their seats, lifted the front wheels of the car off the ground, and burst their eardrums.

Through the buzzing pain of his shot ears, Seto slammed the start button of the car and swerved around. Dust filled the air like an ashen fog.

"No! Find Yugi!" Mokuba snatched at the side of the wheel, nearly killing them all right there. "I'll drive!"

Debris pattered across the hood and top of the car. Seto didn't argue. With more lithe flexibility than he thought he had, he slid into the passenger seat as his twelve year old brother leapt over him to the driver's seat.

A beam of something bounced off the hood. Joey started to scream.

 **Author's note: I'm sorry this chapter is so short. I've had a really hard week due to a bad falling out with a neighbor and friend so the next chapter isn't finished yet. The ending of this story is getting pretty close, though. :) So soon you'll have the whole story to enjoy. Again, I am sorry. If I get the next chapter and the chapter after it finished, I'll post up another chapter before Monday. Until then, I wish you luck with all your various endeavors.**


	54. Down the Hatchet

53

Atem woke with a start. Everything vibrated.

He dropped off the couch onto Yugi, bracing himself. She squirmed beneath his weight.

"Atem? What?"

The glass wall he hated so much, filled with too bright sunshine, shivered. Grey smoke rushed to cover the view. Crap, if the glass shattered—it had to be thick too. This was only one of the many reasons Atem thought glass a stupid construction material for anything other than moderately sized windows, and even then—

Across the apartment, the front door slammed open.

"Out! Quick!" shouted Marik.

Atem and Yugi had barely managed to get to their feet and face the ancient vampire and his two cronies when the glass wall exploded.

Atem did his best to cover as much of Yugi as he could as they fell. He fell onto her small body hard and cracked his chin against the side of her skull.

Only once the tinkling of glass had stopped and the trembling world drew back to a distant rumble did Atem dare to raise his head. A thin trail of blood dripped off the curve between his bare shoulder and neck.

Suddenly, Marik was there, tearing him off of Yugi. Miraculously, he caught himself against a small patch of carpet untouched by the giant shards of glass. As he did so, he felt something large, solid, and wet, slide down from his back, stretching with a knee-weakening, pleasantly painful wave of relief. A wing.

Marik wasn't gentle. He didn't wait for Yugi to catch her breath, just slung her over his shoulder, dark eyes shut against the light. He barked for the other vampires, but they had recoiled against the door, palms to their eyes. Wave upon wave of cold wind billowed through, carrying with it the scent of fumes, smoke, and ozone.

Atem looked to the open space. He stretched his free wing, feeling the second stretch the smarting skin of his back.

Marik started shuffling blindly towards the door, Yugi choking for breath against his back.

With a spike of sheer, raw adrenaline, Atem tackled Marik and sunk every nail and tooth he had into the arm about Yugi.

Instantly, Marik's claws tore him away, but not without Atem getting a hold of Yugi. Both Atem and Yugi hit the floor. Atem turned it into a roll, knocking into glass with naked shins—and into a mad dash to the open air, clutching Yugi to his chest. Marik's hell-bent shriek rent the air. Claws scraped the back of Atem's heels.

The floor vanished. Open space swallowed him, and gravity took hold. Fumes and dust rushed past to show the road far below rushing up.

Atem's second wing broke free with a snap of broken skin.

Pain blinded him as the air caught his outspread wings, tearing what felt like his entire back and shoulders from his body. For a moment, only the force of the air and his hands stopped Yugi from dropping.

But caught they did, and through watering, protesting eyes, he squinted his way over to the top of an approaching, shorter building. Unable to flap, he leaned his weight over, praying his screaming wings didn't snap before he reached it. Even then there would still be a twenty foot drop.

Through sheer miracle his wings held and his feet found the roof. The moment they did, he felt to his bleeding knees, gasping for breath and clinging to Yugi for dear life.

"Are you okay?" he asked the moment he could.

"Atem…your wings…they're covered in blood and pus."

He painfully folded them against his back. "No time," he panted, pushing her to her feet. "We have to—"

A thunderous crack came from behind. Atem only had the time to turn and see Marik, cracks radiating from his feet where he had landed—before the beast was on him.

Fangs and claws tore into his shoulders, tossing him. He flew through the air. Yugi screamed. The roof vanished and he was falling once more towards cars and pavement.

With a sharp suck of breath, he snapped open his riddled, infected wings. Stars burst across his eyes. But somehow, the pain was less this time, and he managed to pump once—twice—

He reached the top of the building just in time to see Marik stepping through the door to the floor below. A mixture of adrenaline and the screaming of his soul for Yugi filled him with a fury as he had never known, bleeding a familiar red across his vision. Fangs stretched from his gums as he dashed through the door and down the dark stairs. Yugi's screaming rebounded up the cement tower.

Instinctively, not even stopping to think if it would even work, he reached out for the shadows. Like invisible fingers trailing along the walls, he mentally imagined gathering every shadow that caught against his fingers as he jumped step by step and wheeled into the door just closing behind Marik.

The second floor of this particular building had windows spanning all sides. While not floor to ceiling, they would have let in a phenomenal amount of light had not most of them been covered by blinds. Offices separated by temporary, felt covered walls and more glass filled the space, and the smell of industrial cleaners, paper, and ink tickled his nose.

He found Yugi immediately in the midst of them all, reaching for him over Marik's shoulder.

Marik vanished, she fell, only for the ancient vampire to appear before Atem before she had even hit the ground. As the monster's claws dug into his ribs, all the shadows he had gathered snapped in about him. Darkness enclosed them, tight as a rubber suit.

Atem squeezed the shadows in as hard as he could.

Marik squawked.

Atem stumbled back from his knot of shadows, unable to breathe. Blood poured from his chest. His wings trailed alongside him, staining the neutral, flat carpet with blood and yellowed strings of pus.

But even as his head felt like bursting and his eyes popping from the effort to compress his shadows about Marik, white claws brust through the blackness. The ancient vampire reared his head from the mass, skin and flesh stretched taunt from his gaping, stretched jaws of fangs, black eyes fit to bursting from his skull. An ugly, lionic snarl tore from his throat. The tips of his gold blond hair had been dyed red by blood, Atem's or otherwise. As the red irises pierced into Atem's gut, fear spiked through his desperate fury. He became all too aware of the deep wounds on his chest and shoulders streaming blood and the mottled, half-rotten state of his infected wings.

 _I wouldn't have been able to take him on even at my prime._

As a muscled hardened arm tore from his shadow's grasp, and then a leg, Atem took a step back, beginning to tremble. Everything had already started to blur and his head felt light.

Suddenly, Yugi vaulted up from behind, grappling Marik's head through the darkness to bury tiny, razor sharp fangs into his neck. As she did so, she jammed her forearm into his open jaws.

"Yugi! No!"

The wounds he had given her reopened. Bright red blood splashed into Marik's maw, denching his tongue. Marik momentarily wagged his head in protest, but then, as though unable to help himself, buried his dozens of shark-like teeth into her thin arm.

Whatever noise of pain she made was muffled by her own mouthful of the ancient vampire's stone-like flesh.

Atem stumbled forward. Tendrils of shadow peeled from the knot to pull at her, but he couldn't tear her free, not without tearing off her arm in the ancient vampire's mouth.

He fell to a knee.

"No…" What was left of his darkening vision filled with burning tears. "Yugi. No."

Just as Marik took another deep drag of Yugi's blood, however, he let go to gag, crumpling to the ground amidst the sinewy remains of Atem's weakening shadows. Yugi fell away, hugging her mince-meat arm to her stomach, dark, vampiric blood staining her mouth.

The door to the stairway crashed open just as Marik vomited dark blood onto his braced hands.

"Get out of here!"

Joey, golden hair flying about her like a halo, crossed the distance to Marik in one super-human leap. She tore back the retching vampire's head by the hear and thrust her arm into mouth. Teeth peeled away flesh as she tugged it back out.

"Run!"

Faster than his failing eyes could catch, Joey swiped Yugi from the ground with one arm then came round to pick him up around the middle with the other. Marik was rising to his feet, screaming, gagging, black eyes bulging, blood drenching his face and hair. Muscles and tendons bulged from his neck.

Joey charged one of the open office windows, apparently too blind from the sunlight to find the door back up to the roof.

"Joey—!"

Too late. She threw herself shoulder first through the glass window.

At the same time, Marik exploded.

Heat and fire shoved them out, scorching him, forcing his eyes shut. Falling, wind tore at his limp, useless wings. He couldn't breathe. The last of his shadows seemed to recoil back to him, slapping away the last of his consciousness.

 **Author's Note: Because why freaking not.**


	55. Like a Boss

54

Joey felt like a freaking super hero.

When Seto had shoved the high-tech looking grenade into her hand and told her to get to the top of a medium sized skyscraper as though all their lives depended on it, she had been too frantic to ask why. She hadn't bothered running around like a chicken with her head cut off, she just punched her way to the stairs, then leaped up like a freaking superhuman grasshopper. Within moments the smell of ultra-sweet vampiric blood and the rusty metallic of human blood had filled her sinuses like too much perfume and she crashed onto the scene. Hoping it would work, she shoved in the button on the grenade, shoved it down the freak's throat, grabbed the bleeding Atem and Yugi, and ran head first out of the window like a boss.

It wasn't till the explosion sent her spinning head over heels as she fell that it occurred to her how very, very stupid that had been. Atem's black wings snapped against the wind alongside her like a loose, leathery tarp. Even if they had been working there was no way it could have held up both Yugi and her arse.

"Aw SHIIIIIII-"

Then something hard collided against her. The fall jolted to a stop, and Joey found her face inches from the ground, clinging awkwardly to an unconscious vampire and a limp Yugi clutching a bloody arm to her middle.

"What the hell, Joey, you were suppose to push the button right before you used it, not—jumping out of a window? Fifteen stories?"

They'd have to talk later. Rubble cracked about them from the sky. More explosions thundered about the city. Armegeddon was at hand.

Seto more tossed her towards the car than set her on her feet. Still spiked with adrenaline, she flashed over, tossed the two into the back, shoved the rest of Atem's wings after him, and tried to crawl in herself. The front seat snapped back onto her rear.

"Hey!"

Seto slammed the door closed and mashed in the gas. G-force threw her into the mass of vampire and squawking best friend.

"Joey?" Yugi somehow managed to choke out.

Alas, super hero Joey was too busy getting her breath back for more screaming.

Mokuba's fingers on the side of his seat had gone white.

"Seto, we're not—"

The wheels hit a ramp. Joey went weightless, damp dragon wings rising with her.

Her breath snapped back into place for another scream.

Then SLAM! The car hit back down with an unsettling crunch of wheels and metal, and Joey onto two very non-squishy bodies. An elbow jabbed into her gut, knocking the wind from her.

"OPEN YOUR EYES!" Mokuba screamed.

Joey did so, wondering why the hell he tell her to do that, only to have her gaze fall on Seto's face. What she saw sucked all the blood from her face.

The freak was driving with his eyes closed.

With an unreal sort of skill and reflex, Seto twisted the steering wheel about, dodging falling debris and buildings like someone in a video game, and not a very realistic video game at that. Tires squeeled and bounced over rubble, black smoke and plumes of white dust blinded the windshield. Even if the crazy had his eyes open, she doubted he would have seen much.

A hand gripped her arm over the mass of unconscious wings.

"Joey," Yugi squeaked.

Then they flew up once more.

"We're gonna diiiie!" Joey wailed.

And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. The thundering of explosions still sounded about them, but it came from behind, and the smoke in front of the car thinned. Clear, smooth road opened up before them.

Kaiba opened his eyes with a gasp, jerking over the steering wheel. The car swerved slightly and started to slow.

"Mo-Moki…" he said faintly.

Then keeled sideways over the consol.

Mokuba jumped over his limp brother to grab the wheel as it slid from his white hands. Somehow, he managed to pull them over as the car came to a stop, but even then the older Kaiba did not stir.

Joey clawed her way from the backseat to see his face. "Moneybags?"

Mokuba appeared on the driver's side, heaving his brother out of the seat.

"Help me!" he yelled.

Joey did more clawing, and somehow managed to get the floppy mass of unconscious vampire into the back without breaking his spine and her into the passenger seat. Mokuba had the car going at break neck speed by the time her buttcheeks hit the seat. From the back she heard Yugi grunting as she tried to find space for herself.

"Did he—"

"Drive us through an exploding downtown with his eyes closed, yes," Mokuba sounded half Kaiba-cool, half hysterical. "I think those were just warning bombs."

"What the hell for? Don't suck any more blood, you sickos?"

"To get the last of the uninfected out of town. Do you really think leveling the city with normal bombs would get rid of all the vampires? No. It's a nuke or nothing else."

"Isn't that a good thing? We can still get out before we're sleeping with the cockroaches."

"Not if Yugi is the cure," Mokuba swerved out of the way of an abandoned bus in the middle of the road.

"But, Atem's still got those wingy thingies."

"Those are entire limbs, Joey. They're not going to poof away just because what's sustaining them is gone." Another swerve—Joey was smooshed into the door.

"Do I need to ask how a twelve year old knows how to drive like James Bond?"

Mokuba's thin mouth managed a smirk. "Nope. Open the glove department and get the phone out from there, will ya?"

Joey did so, but not without a sense of nausea as Mokuba performed so more stunt double like action moves with the car. The glove compartment opened up to a set of high tech looking devices clipped into place, and whose black screens stared back at Joey without a hint as to what they did.

"Uh, which-?"

"Last one on the right."

She fingered it out right after she had to brace herself against it to stop herself from face planting into it as Mokuba made a sharp right. Once she got it on and managed to squeeze pass her awe of the super high-def screen, she asked what next.

"Open the contacts and call Emergency 5."

"And I'm to say…?"

"Upload our coordinates and say the Kaiba's found a cure and are heading to West Interstate 15."

"…It can't be that easy. Are you sure this isn't your normal twelve-year-old-ness poking through?"

"Joey!"

"Calling! Calling! Jeeze, both of you are freaks of nature, I swear."

Whoever she was calling picked up on the third ring.

" _Mayor Maximillion Pegasus here. I've been waiting_ , _Kaiba-boy_."

Joey nearly dropped the phone.

Everything sort of fell into place like the last water swirling out of sight down a drain. Joey robot repeated whatever Mokuba said before Mokuba put the freaking mayor on blue tooth. The gist of the conversation consisted of a creepily amused mayor (how he could be with his city melting like this) hearing Mokuba out about Yugi and the cure, making sure Mokuba understood that they would all be taken into custody, before offering a spot they could meet. Mokuba made the man promise they would listen and give them the best care (not just locking them up with the masses in prison like they had attempted to do before), before giving their position from the car's gps and agreeing to the meet up point.

Some driving. Joey accidentally tore holes in the seat when she clenched it in fear on seeing the army closing in around them. But even Mokuba's stern looks or the armies threats would separate Joey from Yugi, who had passed out from blood loss sometime in the journey. She clung to her until they led her to a makeshift bunker room filled with reassuring doctor's that allowed Joey to hold on to Yugi's uninjured hand while they worked on her. Someone got her a chair, and the next thing Joey knew she was waking up with her head nuzzled into Yugi's side on the hospital bed. She shot up, ready to bite someone's head off, but she still had Yugi's hand and only a kind nurse remained by the bed.

"Everything's going to be okay," she told Joey softly. "No one is going to hurt you."

Joey highly doubted that, considering they had to know what she was. The growing thirst in the back of her throat reminded her of that as well.

"Where are the Kaiba's? Atem? The winged dude?"

"The Kaiba's are out with the mayor, running tests. Atem is being treated as well." A peculiar expression crossed her face and she met Joey's gaze with an unsettling sternness. "They say he's human, though he doesn't look it…was it really her blood?"

Joey didn't much care for that question, despite their whole intent on revealing the cure. She was too tired, too thirsty, and too worried about her sleeping, bandaged up friend.

"That's what I gathered. But if I catch someone trying to drain her like some sort of fruit—" Her sudden, elongated fangs cut through her bottom lips, cutting her off.

The nurse stiffened, stinking the air with her fear. "I am doing no such thing."

Not wanting to tear her mouth up more with talking (gal, how did vampires manage it?), she settled for a snarl and settled her head and arm protectively over her friend's chest.

Despite her threats, as quiet minutes rolled into an hour, Joey once again nodded off.

 **Author's Note: Sorry for the late update. I'm lame. No other excuse.**


	56. In Contact

55

Seto Kaiba's had the worst migraine known to man and he was thirsty. No, beyond thirsty, which did nothing for his already famously short temper.

"I don't care if you stick a nuclear warhead in my face, take anything from them that isn't necessary for them healing and I swear I'll suck _every last one of you dry!"_

The militant dressed doctor knees pinched in and his damp face went white.

"Sir, the conditions of the truce—"

"Won't matter to me if you lot get greedy." He could already taste his own blood from where his stretching fangs had cut his mouth. Just one more way of his alien body telling him to shut up and feed. Though the trickle of blood out of the corner of his mouth did add a wonderful effect to getting everyone within sight to coil back like cowed dogs in a kennel.

"It's only a bit of bone marrow—" said the wispy remains of a nurse's courage.

"Which is a major procedure, despite what you sycophants want me to think, especially for Atem's and Yugi's systems which are already compromised." He rolled his head about, both to swallow down the blood each word caused and to gnash his teeth.

"My my, you lot certainly don't have an ounce of self-preservation."

That irritating voice bled red across Seto's vision. His head hung off his shoulder's in the silver-haired man's direction, knees bending for the pounce.

Something plastic, warm, and familiar hit his chest. His reflexes caught it and came to sucking out of a large blood bag. In his monster's eagerness, his fingers had punctured the bag, spraying blood up his hands.

The room as a whole gasped and made the usual noises of the horrified and disturbed, but the silver-haired mayor, Maximillion Pegasus, just crossed his arms and smiled as though having calmed a raging child with their favorite toy.

"There's a good boy. No eating the good doctors."

Kaiba wrenched his wet face away with a snarl. This is why he hated the man.

"If the good doctors don't turn their patients into lab rats, I won't."

"Keep drinking, you fool. You're hangry."

"That's not even a word!"

"And yet hangry you are, so sensitive. Look, I'll personally make sure no biopsies or samples are taken without the patient's direct consent, okay? So num num, bloody blood!"

Oh how he hated that sing song voice. "That would have been the case anyway if major over there," Seto shot a bloodied glared at a grizzled man pressed up against the canvas walls with a wet patch on his crotch. "Hadn't declared the jurisdiction of Domino county under martial law."

"So I'll promote myself." Pegasus clapped his hands together and gave the wet major a glowing smile. "Major Wayne, would you please give me the honor of having your position? I'll be sure to give it back as soon as you lot aren't in danger of being vampire food, on my honor."

 _Whatever that was worth_ , Seto thought scathingly as he licked the blood off his fingers. His thirst had done away with the bag almost the moment he had it, and he felt himself regressing to something like a cat wanting to give itself a tongue bath.

"Alright, sir. But from this point, I can't be held responsible for your physical safety."

"Or mental, I dare say. Mr. Kaiba paints quite the steamy picture, all manly and dripping with blood while those eyes—ooo! They glow! I could just eat you up."

Seto growled. For not the first time, he wondered how the hell this man had managed to become mayor. Mokuba's theory was that he had played on the growing fad for pushing homosexuals and all the like into offices of power to prove evolution of the society. Personally, Seto didn't really see how someone rolled around in the hay made any difference in anything, nor did he care to know. Straight, gay, bi, all people were disgusting to him.

The image of Josephine standing by that window, half gold with evening sunlight, flashed across his mind.

What could they be doing to her? Yugi had a cure in her blood, Atem had been the cured, Seto and Mokuba had power, but what had Joey?

He dropped the empty bag on the floor. "I'll leave it to you, then."

Pegasus clapped his hands again. "Wonderful. Also, the blood bank is down the hall to your right in a big old steel refrigerator, can't miss it."

"Mayor!" cried the ex-major.

Seto gave that man an extra glower before prowling from the room. Luckily, the said refrigerator wasn't too off the path of Joey's scent, so he reached in and grabbed an armful of bags before continuing his journey. The lone soldier that happened to be coming down the hall at the same time as him actually squawked and pivoted back from where he came. Seto liked that. He should swagger around shirtless and covered in blood more often.

Why he was shirtless? Freaking old man had gotten his pussy wing ooze all over it, and the stuff had _stunk._

He found her through one of the temporary flap doors with her head nuzzled up into her sleeping friend's side as she sat on a chair by the small bed. One arm had been flung across Yugi's waist, the other to pillow her head.

Mokuba sat across from her, also asleep. Seto shook him awake and put a blood bag in his lap. He felt his brother's chagrin in the way he looked Seto over.

"It disturbs me more that I'm not disturbed by how you look right now," he said, bringing up the bag. "Yugi should be fine. She just had a blood transfusion, of course, but they gave her some meds this time that should help her body adjust to it better and put her to sleep. The less stress the better, they said. Something about white blood cell count being low."

"I figured."

He went to Joey's side to wake her for food, but found himself reconsidering and instead grabbed a chair and took to sucking up his last bag next to her. Ugh, how he hated the feel of plastic. A part of him almost wished the idiots had given him a reason to go feral and eat a few, because the more blood he took in, the better the pain in his head. He was ravenous. Not to mention once Joey woke up he'd have another mouth to feed.

On finishing, Mokuba stretched and yawned.

"You'd think they'd bother bringing in a cot or something," he messed his hair, blinking hard.

"And give us more reason to not leave Yugi alone to them? Sure. Have you heard anything on Atem?"

"Not too much." Mokuba gestured to the thin laptop leaning against the leg of his chair. "They've been having to move so fast there isn't much time to put info into the system, and this temporary structure also has a very minimal, temporary surveillance. What I have gotten is that they had to amputate his wings and had one of those huge oxygen chambers flown in from somewhere. You know, the glass coffin things that look like a stasis tube from Star Trek?"

Seto nodded, leaning back. "Must be gangrene, then. His human body must not have been able to supply an extra pair of appendages, and such needy ones at that. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had been rotting from the inside."

Mokuba screwed up his face and shuddered. "It's a wonder they worked at all, then."

"He's survived a long time," said Seto as a way of answer and returned back to watching Joey as her breath wriggled strands of dirty blond hair. The girl was filthy. They all were.

"When this is over," said Mokuba with another yawn. "Let's take a vacation to Fiji or something, yeah? Somewhere with lots of sun and water."

Seto found himself yawning as well. Contagious buggers. But, then, he had been up all day and night.

"That sounds nice."

Only once he had a hand on Joey and his foot in contact with Mokuba's under the bed did he allow himself to close his eyes.

 **Author's Note: My absence was due to issues trying to wean off my anti-anxiety medication. I'm sort of...crash into a brick wall with my head if it was in my way, so I went too far and ended up in the ER and, well, all of that isn't exactly productive to writing. But I now have the ending of the story on my hands and will be putting it up forthwith. ^.^ Thank you for your patience.**


	57. Half Rotten and Mad

**This is the second of my updates today, so be sure you don't miss the previous chapter.**

56

Atem woke up to the set of a sci-fi nightmare. He lay on his stomach on something flat, but soft, encompassed with blinding white and glass. Everything hurt, but not anything like his back. His back had gone beyond agony. He choked trying to figure out how to breathe through it and found himself failing, and yet his vision didn't blacken. In fact, his head didn't feel deprived at all.

That gave him the clarity of mind to take a bit more in of the glass dome about him with its white, vent striped ends. He couldn't move his head much, as each twitch of his neck caused his gaping back to blind him.

That was one of the nightmarish parts. He hadn't been bandaged, and from what he could see from the corner of his eye, that amount of red could only mean they had done the most elementary in closing up whatever mess his back had become. They must have cut out his wings. But he couldn't figure out how he felt about that now.

"Hey." It came out a whisper. He fish gulped for more air, mind blanking from pain. "Hey!"

A knobbly older man in a white lab coat appeared from the darkness outside the glass. Atem recognized the sad, magnified eyes and the thinning salt and pepper hair.

He pushed a button somewhere near the bottom of the tube. "How is your pain?"

"Hell on sawblades," he wheezed. "Yugi—" and his back seized up, taking his lungs with it.

Cold. He hadn't noticed it on waking, but he felt like ice, yet he didn't shiver. It was a wonder he couldn't see his own breath.

The doctor fiddled with the base the tube again.

"Yugi," he mouthed. He had to get out of there, find her, kill them, everyone—who put him in this tube, who cut off his wings, who took her from him yet again—

A wave of coolness flushed over him, knocking his consciousness spinning. His capsule rolled, yet he didn't move an inch, meaning it was all in his head. The pain, miraculously, backed off, and his lungs filled with air which made his head spin even more.

"She's okay," said the mechanical voice of the doctor. "Worry more for yourself. You've been in a coma for a week. You've woken up just in time to come to the end of today's treatment."

Even though Atem wasn't really listening—comprehending speech felt like catching water with his fingers—the doctor kept talking.

"You can't stay exposed to %100 oxygen, after all, but we variate it. You're healing rate is extraordinary, and your bones, I dare say you will never have to experience a broken bone for the rest of your life, within reason, of course."

Atem wanted him to stop talking. He wanted out. He tried to raise wings that weren't there to push out against the glass dome, but all he got was another rolling wave of dizziness.

"Be happy, Mr. Yami. You've made history. Human medical science will never be the same after this."

He hadn't been this chatty the last time. Why had that been? Oh yeah, because Atem had his claws to his throat. Maybe he could do that again.

Time slithered and the capsule thing opened up like a tanning booth and suddenly breathing wasn't nearly as easy as it had use to been. More men and arms and hands had joined the knobbly doctor and Atem found his mouth watering with stretching fangs.

"Don't touch me," he wheezed as the arms scooped under him from head to toe. He managed to turn his head to snap at the hand holding up his head, but his teeth only caught cloth.

"You gave him morphine?" asked a doctor.

"Not everyone reacts happily to it," said another. "And there's no telling how his brain chemistry has been changed."

Atem kept gnashing his teeth. He found his legs and kicked. It was like kicking through sand.

The arms moved him to another bed, and Atem lost track of what happened after that. There were prods, movement, something occurring. It was harder to tell lain on his stomach as he was. At one point he woke up to the arms wrapping gauze and bandages about him, finally covering the wound of his back. Whatever drug they had been slipping him before had long worn off and the pain made him scream.

The pain woke him up, though, and spiked enough adrenaline through his veins to shove away the offending hands. Blind with feral ferocity, fear, confusion, and need, he pushed through, staggered to find balance on his fawn-like legs, and through a door. Blurred figures came at him, arms stretched out like tentacles of beasts, and he lashed out at any that got close, snarling and gnashing his teeth.

Butterscotch. Lavender. He had to get to it. Getting stronger.

A slight figure appeared in his path. It radiated the sweet, warming scent, bringing him back to his shaking legs and focusing his vision.

Yugi. Her flesh a healthy, lovely pink. Bright eyes wide on him. Her hair tamed back into pigtails that fluff at her shoulder blades like tiny, colorful wings. Dressed in a lacy, layered blouse and little, pleated skirt.

Her arms opened to him too, but they weren't tentacles or claws.

With a gust of relief, he fell into them.

Of course she couldn't carry him, but she gave a gallant effort that made him laugh, albeit weakly. She managed to get them down onto their knees, though she still struggled to stay upright as he hung his weight about her shoulders with not an ounce of guilt. He kind of liked feeling her strain.

"Atem! What are you—I'm so glad—you're trailing bandages everywhere, did you just run out on them? For Pete's sake, don't pass out on me!"

"I'm not," his voice sounded odd in his ears. Too low. Whatever. He was back to the apt position of killing anyone who might even look at her funny. Yugi. His Yugi. Safe.

"Holy crap, is that Atem? Dude, give her some air, man, you're gonna squish her!" cried the familiar tone of Yugi's Josephine.

"Don't touch him, dog."

"Augh! No, you hands off, Moneyballs!"

Inwardly, Atem was grateful to the young Seto Kaiba. Even if it was just Joey, in the state he was in, he still had his fangs out and couldn't promise anything. His mind felt too clouded, his body too strange, and his heart too fearful.

But he was glad. Glad they were okay.


	58. Epilogue

Epilogue

"I…I'm sorry, Atem. I'm too young."

Even though he knew his chances of getting a yes from her were far tinier than her chances of saying no, he still felt the sting and wondered if the sidewalk hitting him upside the head would have hurt any less. It wasn't just the 'no' that stung so bad.

"Yugi, if you don't want to, I would prefer a straight no rather than excuses." He closed the velvet lid on the diamond ring and went to put it into his pocket—

Just for her small hand to catch his wrist. He looked up to find her face bright red, something that always put him at ease as it meant she wasn't at death's door because the blood had been drained out of her. Not the most normal signs of a healthy relationship, but, then, he'd had a few hundred years to get rusty, and he hadn't been paying attention to his current country of residence's courting rituals to the point he could even say he was avoiding it. Bad reminder.

But the ring and the kneeling and the question, he knew that much. He wasn't a complete Neanderthal. He even found a private little local at the city park with a fountain and some twilight lighting and—and—and yeah!

Then why did Yugi have that familiar tightness to her mouth whenever she was fighting not to laugh at him?

"No, I mean I'm _too young_. Legally. I have to be eighteen in order to be considered an adult and able to, you know, sign the papers and all that."

Atem suddenly had the strongest urge to tear off into the night and find some deep dark lake to throw himself into. Sixteen, even three months from seventeen, wasn't eighteen, and she was definitely laughing at him now. Not exactly great for the image he wanted of a dark, dashing, virile man at his prime flashing a few thousand dollar carats.

But the thing was, he could have sworn he'd known many girls who had gotten married at sixteen in this time, even fifteen and fourteen. But even as he dug out those memories to accuse them of lying, he found that the last time he had known that to happen had been decades ago. World War II decades ago. And while that had seemed like not too long ago when he had been an immortal vampire, as a human, ugh, Yugi's mother, maybe even her grandmother, hadn't even been born yet!

He was so caught up in mentally digging himself a hole to die in that he just caught Yugi's next words.

"Besides, we haven't even been out on an official date yet, we've just hung out. That can't be enough for you to decide you want to marry me."

Was that light at the top of the hole? No, that was just the streetlamps, all orange and ugly. More excuses.

"Dates and hanging out serve the same purpose of getting to know one another, and I hardly need any of it to know I want to marry you." He rubbed his hand under his nose to prevent himself from sniffing. Of course he wasn't crying, come on, he was a man, one who had slain hundreds with his bare hands and hundreds more with his fangs. "Besides, how I was raised it was your parents who had final say. I've already asked your grandfather and mother and it was fine with them, so there was nothing left but to ask you."

Yugi gaped. "You asked—wait, they actually agreed to this?"

Atem snapped his hand back holding the ring and stuffed into his pocket and stood. She didn't have to make it sound like he was committing a crime.

"I'm sorry for embarrassing you like this—"

"The only one whose embarrassed is you, Atem, and you shouldn't be!"

That made him pause from his before planned fleeing. He turned back to her.

"And why shouldn't I be?" He kept his voice even.

She had clenched the front of her jeans hard and there was no laughter tightening her mouth anymore. Just apprehension.

"Atem, I…I think being married to you…sounds beautiful."

He stepped forward, heart rocketing up so fast it could have burst out of the top of his head and into the night.

"But I-I-I'm so young, and, you know, inexperienced with this sort of stuff, and people make the wrong choices when they get involved too deep when their this young and—"

He already had a hand on her shoulder. These fears were nothing. "Yugi, in my time a girl your age could be having her second child, and we knew a lot less then than you do now. The amount of knowledge you have floating at your fingertips, you're a scholar of my world several times over. What more do you need to know?"

"I don't know!" She clamped her closed fists onto the sides of her head, face flushed, expression honestly distressed. "But I've never even had a boyfriend before. How do I know how to do it right? How do I even know you're a good choice?" She blanched. "I mean, I don't think you're mean, I…"

But now he had blanched too. Their first encounter was him essentially kidnapping her and locking her down in his house to suck her blood. Then the next two weeks of their notorious acquaintance involved her nearly dying several times over along with him as well.

Now as apprehensive as her, he knelt back down at her feet. Somehow, it helped him feel a little more worthy of being in her presence just then.

The questions he asked her next he also asked of himself.

"Yugi, would I ever try to hurt you?"

She shook her head, eyes bright with uncertain tears.

"Not on purpose…I think."

He gave her a wry grin. "Not trying to be polite or politically correct with that answer, are you?"

She let out a light laugh. "No. You're the kindest soul I've ever met, Atem. I didn't need three months to figure that out. I saw it the first time you realized you had bitten me."

That amount of faith in him made him quiver. He had never had the same for himself. It made him want to bow even lower, but his heart wouldn't let him. This wasn't a complicated matter. It never should have been made to be.

"Do you think I'd ever cheat on you?" he asked.

At this, she wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"How should I know? You haven't even given other girls a chance—"

"I've had three hundred years to give them a chance," he said dryly.

"But you've only gotten your…you know—"

"Oh, so love is based off the call to sex?" At her squirm, he couldn't help but draw a little closer, a little higher, mischievousness sweetening the back of his tongue. "Do you think I haven't had ample enough opportunity to have that particular desire satisfied?"

She wiggled a bit back, so bright red he had to chortle.

"Okay, no, you won't cheat on me, though it doesn't exactly make sense why you'd want someone like me—"

"—or why you'd want someone like me." Atem sat back on his heels. "Which brings me to the last question: Yugi…my darling one…do you love me?"

Her eyes found his instantly, unwavering, even as she raised her hands to hide the rest of her face. Then, she nodded.

His smile broadened. "Then what else do you need to know? Say you'll marry me. When you're eighteen, of course. I promise I will always treasure you, I will always keep a roof over your head, and I will never hesitate to put my life on the line to keep you safe, as I have done before."

Yugi didn't fidget or squirm this time. In fact, she held so absolutely still, if it weren't for the gleam of the park's lights on her bright eyes she could have become a wax statue.

Then, she lowered her hands, revealing a tentative smile, and nodded.

He wasted no time sweeping her up into his arms then and covering her sweet, blushing face with kisses. Somehow, in his gush of affection, he managed to get the ring back out and on her finger. It was a little on the large side, but that could be easily fixed.

Course, then Seto Kaiba had to inform him that, technically, teenagers could get married at the age of 16 with the consent of their parents, and that opened up a whole other episode of severe cradle robbing on Atem's behalf.

But what could he say? He was only human.

 **Author's Note: I actually had this whole thing of Pegasus being an ancient vampire too and him being in the huge conspiracy with Marik and Bakura to rule the world using vampirism and the cure for vampirism and all that schmuck, and then Kaiba finally meeting the guy who changed him in the first place or just assuming that Atem did it and try to kill him now that he's human and not vampire, buuuuuuut...I'm done. Me, this story, done. I think a hundred thousand words is good. I had never meant for it to get this huge in the first place. It was supposed to just be a little Halloween drabble with some vampires. But...yeah.**

 **I'll post some pointless deleted scenes on Monday, perhaps. Hoped you liked it. ^.^ Make sure you didn't miss any chapters, because I updated a few of them today.**


End file.
